Bauma Interview: Bert van Hasselt, Deutz

The Deutz stand at Bauma 2025 featured a review of recent engine history, finished with a display of the latest engines being produced on behalf of Daimler Truck (Photo: Power Progress)

Bathed in warm spring sunshine, Messe München can appear almost serene. But looks can be deceiving. Behind the gently waving flags and rippling reflecting pools the Bauma trade fair was in full swing, the halls and outdoor exhibition areas packed with visitors eager to see the latest equipment for the construction and mining industries.

While Deutz elected not to attend Bauma in 2022, the German engine OEM returned this year to showcase its product lineup. Under the banner ‘We ensure the world keeps moving’, the company stand featured engines powered by diesel, HVO and hydrogen, together with hybrid and full electric drives, battery components and gen sets.

So far, so good. The selection was a broad match for most other engine manufacturers; highly-efficient diesel engines sharing the spotlight with a range of electrified power solutions intended to reduce reliance on fossil fuels while also cutting emissions.

It might seem odd that Deutz, a true ‘grande dame’ of German internal combustion engineering, has moved into the electrical power market – you may recall that the company was founded by Nicolaus August Otto, the inventor of the first four-stroke internal combustion engine – but the move appears to be a natural response to market pressures.

Recent development of electrical solutions was first supported through the purchase (and subsequent sale) of power specialist Torqeedo. The latest move has Deutz finalising the acquisition of Urban Mobility Systems (UMS), a company which produces electric drives for off-highway and defense applications.

New Tech focus

To manage this new purchase and future product development, Deutz appointed Bert van Hasselt as CEO of the New Tech division. Speaking about his appointment, Sebastian Schulte, Deutz CEO, noted: “A spirit of optimism and a startup mentality are important for this young business unit. With Bert van Hasselt we have exactly the right colleague, someone who approaches the topics with great energy, a hands-on mentality and sometimes unconventional ways.”

In an exclusive meeting with Power Progress International at the recent Bauma trade fair in Munich, Van Hasselt opened with a review of the company’s latest technology direction.

“We have the hydrogen [internal combustion] engine, but we’re also actively developing electrical products. Which, for a lot of people, customers and suppliers, was a bit odd – ‘Hey, you’re the combustion guys!’. These were produced within what was called the ‘Green Unit’, but when I took over last year [2024], we decided to rename it ‘New Tech’ – it’s quite catchy, don’t you think?”

Power Progress’s Becky Schultz speaking with Bert van Hasselt at Bauma 2025 (Photo: Power Progress)

As mentioned by Schulte, the remit of the New Tech division is to act like a startup within the Deutz hierarchy. With the directive to ‘question everything’, Van Hasselt says that each of his colleagues is expected to ask why things are done a given way and then, where possible, find better ways to achieve those goals. “I’m already known in the company as the guy who asks the funny questions,” he explains with a laugh.

With frank honesty, Van Hasselt points out that hydrogen isn’t taking off as expected, which he puts down to the lack of a distribution solution that would get fuel to the end user. “How we get hydrogen to the customer is not the million dollar question, it’s the 100 million dollar question.”

With this in mind, he states that the focus has now switched to electrification and e-products. It is this which has prompted the purchase of UMS – the deal is set to close in the coming months. Van Hasselt says the company will play a key role in delivering a high-power 800 V all-in-one LFP battery power solution that can fit in the same onboard vehicle space as an internal combustion engine.

The cherry on top of that powertrain cake is that UMS was already working with OEMs like Komatsu, the second-largest producer of construction machinery in the world, to develop an electric drive solution.

“Komatsu is a benchmark company for electrification,” states Van Hasselt. “On the back of this we’re now talking with all the other big OEMs in the construction machine world.” He even puts forward that defense contractors are now potential customers, while a national supermarket chain in the US has asked UMS to investigate development of a hybrid solution for their truck fleet.

“The purchase of UMS has allowed us to expand away from off-road mobile machinery and offer solutions for a range of markets. Supported by a great team of engineers we now have a formidable R&D presence that can look at the complete on- and off-road market to develop what our customers need,” he explains.

Deutz e360 electrical system was shown at Intermat in 2024 (Photo: Deutz)

That leads on to the idea that Deutz could become an integrator delivering complete powertrains, but Van Hasselt says this would be a step too far outside the company’s existing knowledge base, with the added complexity not necessarily returning positive results.

Van Hasselt: “I don’t want to be the biggest, I want to be the best. That means the best products, the best service, the best support. Delivering complete solutions would put that at risk and would bring us into competition with partners and I’m not prepared to do that now.”

New acquisition

According to Van Hasselt, he became interested in UMS when the company approached Deutz about the purchase of a battery management system. Following that contact, he travelled to the company’s headquarters in Oss, the Netherlands, to find out more.

“They said, ‘what are you doing here?’ and I said, ‘I’m here to vet you.’ I immediately liked them; they were very upfront. They gave me a tour and I asked if the company was for sale. Long story short, they’re now part of our portfolio. There’s a trick to business; it’s about being in the right place at the right time and having a bit of luck.”

Following on from this meeting, the required due diligence was completed in a surprisingly short timeframe. Van Hasselt says that this is indicative of his desire for the New Tech division to act like a startup, moving fast to make things happen quickly.

In addition to the 800 V LFP battery system, UMS has existing relationships with suppliers of motors, controllers and related software. Key to this is proprietary technology which supports balancing across cells and multiple battery packs to improve power delivery and extend battery life.

Looking at the 800 V system, Van Hasselt describes it as a “power delivery kit” that uses a custom subframe to house a complete e-system, minus the battery packs. The advantage, he says, is that this subframe can be slotted into the same space as a diesel engine on a variety of off-highway machines with little or no modification to the chassis.

“We can deliver the skid and the batteries. With that, we deliver a few nuts and bolts and you can mount the complete system. The same kit can be installed as a retrofit unit to electrify the machine – the warranty even remains in place because the system is approved by the OEM.”

Perhaps most importantly, the unit can provide flexibility to the machine OEM. As Van Hasselt notes, the electrification wave is coming, but no one knows how quickly or in what numbers. Supporting the capability to assemble both diesel and electric variants of the same machine on the same manufacturing line in any given order or volume will help to smooth out the transition.

Battery swap

UMS and Deutz are also working on a battery swap system that will allow electric machines to keep working while spare batteries are being charged. With a swap-over time of about 10 minutes and a high power density approaching 700 kWh, the system has been tested on various full-size excavators.

UMS battery packs can be swapped out to keep electric machines working (Photo: UMS)

It’s common knowledge that electric machines present a higher upfront cost than their diesel equivalents, but Van Hasselt says that this needs to be balanced with the favourable total cost of ownership (TCO) numbers.

“Some countries have a high per-kilowatt price but others, like the Netherlands, have a lower energy price. Where energy prices are low, the amortisation of an electric machine is better than that of a diesel model.

“We’ve also been hearing that customers are planning to use machines for longer than before – markets which used to take used equipment don’t want those anymore, they want new models. Running the machines for longer will deliver even greater benefits.”

Van Hasselt believes that even the US will ultimately switch to electric machines, which could prompt investment by Deutz in local battery production. While current US energy policy can best be described as a moving target, he thinks that rapid changes will deliver big wins.

“I can wait and see, or I can make the move now and be the first. It’s what a startup would do. I have been given the freedom to start discovering. I have been given the task of an internal trailblazer as we’d rather have that than have disruption forced on us from the outside. Being an entrepreneur, you need to take risks, predict market directions. And if the business case can be made for an electric machine, why would anyone go for diesel?”

Van Hasselt takes charge

Bert van Hasselt (Photo: Deutz)

The announcement confirming Bert van Hasselt as CEO of the Green Segment – later designated Deutz New Tech – was made in August 2024. The appointment was made following a restructuring of the division, with the related statement noting: “[Van Hasselt] will be responsible for the targeted development of alternative drives.”

In a related press release, Sebastian Schulte, Deutz CEO, said: “Electric drives have a role to play in smaller machine and we have positioned ourselves well in this area in recent years. But it is becoming increasingly clear that many of the machines that we supply drives for will not be able to operate without an internal combustion engine even in the future.

“We should acknowledge this and focus on the areas in which we as Deutz have experience and a head start on our competition.”

Van Hasselt should be a good fit for the position. Having worked at Deutz since 2021, he brings more than 25 years of management expertise from the engineering and commercial vehicle sectors to the New Tech division.