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Schaeffler buys Elmotec to launch into motor production
Schaeffler has acquired the German motor-making machinery specialist Elmotec Statomat, setting it on course to become a large-scale producer of electric motors, especially for automotive applications. The company wants to reduce its reliance on producing components for combustion engine powertrains, and to tap into the burgeoning market for electric drivetrains.
Elmotec is the world’s largest supplier of machines for producing stators for motors and generators. It has a particular expertise in wave-winding technology which increases the packing density of copper windings, thus improving machine efficiencies.
In 2017, Elmotec generated sales worth around €40m and it has around 200 employees. It holds more than 50 patents covering winding technologies.
Schaeffler plans to combine Elmotec’s expertise with its own technologies, and those of the high-performance drive specialist Compact Dynamics, which it bought from Semikron in 2016, to create a complete portfolio of motor-making capabilities.
According to Schaeffler’s CEO, Klaus Rosenfeld, the Elmotec acquisition “will enable us to seamlessly and completely accommodate the industrialisation of electric motor construction within our company”. The acquisition will, he adds, “close the last remaining technology gap in the production of motors and stators”.
Schaeffler is expected to begin mass-production of electric motors in 2020 or 2021. It will focus on permanent magnet machines, but may also produce asynchronous motors. It will target the 50–150kW power range.
Schaeffler set up an electric mobility division earlier this year. The business is already worth around €500m and is expected to double in size by 2020, to account for about 10% of Schaeffler’s automotive-related turnover.
