Daimler Truck and Gehring partner on “truck-e-fied” e-motors

Left to right: Bernd Nagel, CEO, Gehring Group; Yaris Pürsün, head of Global Powersystems Operation, Daimler Truck. (Photo: Daimler Truck)

Daimler Truck AG and electric drivetrain specialist Gehring Technologies GmbH + Co. KG have signed an agreement on a strategic partnership that will focus on process development and prototype construction of electric motors for commercial vehicles, as well as further development and testing of production processes.

Gehring, based in Ostfildern, Baden-Württemberg, offers an integrated portfolio that includes production technology for manufacturing traction drives in electrified vehicles. These designs combine electric motor characteristics with high automation capability and process reproducibility, which are prerequisites for large-scale automotive production.

The partnership will include prototype e-motor production at a joint technical center (InnoLab eDrive) at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Gaggenau, Germany, with Gehring also supplying equipment for the Gaggenau site. The plant has specialized in heavy-duty commercial vehicle transmissions and is developing into a competence center for electric drive components and the assembly of hydrogen-based fuel cell drive components, Daimler Truck noted. It already supplies components for the eActros and eEconic electric vehicles.

“As part of the future target pictures of our German Powersystems sites, the InnoLabs play an important role: analyzing the powertrains of the future in terms of their commercial vehicle specific application as well as testing innovative production methods and processes,” said Yaris Pürsün, head of Global Powersystems Operation, Daimler Truck. “The agreement with Gehring for ‘truck-e-fied” e-motors is an important component here.”

Bernd Nagel, partner and CEO of the Gehring Group, stated: “For a long time, we have experienced that coordinated development of products and manufacturing processes at an early stage leads to high-performance production systems. We are, therefore, all the more pleased to be able to work together with Daimler Truck to deepen our hairpin technologies specifically for the electric powertrain of trucks and buses. We are convinced that this strategic cooperation will enable us to significantly advance e-mobility in the heavy-duty vehicle sector.”