Schaeffler integrates thermal management into electric axle drive
Typically, electric axle drives combine up to three drive components in one compact unit. With its new 4in1 E-axle, Schaeffler goes one step further and integrates not only the electric motor, power electronics and transmission, but also the thermal management system into the axle drive. This saves space and weight and ensures greater comfort. A particularly efficient thermal management system also ensures that a car drives further on one battery charge and charges faster, the company promises. Also new are electric rigid axles for pickup trucks, so-called Beam E-axles. In the future, Schaeffler will supply them primarily to North American automakers.
In electric cars, heat is a scarce and valuable commodity. For example, they lack the waste heat of the combustion engine to heat the interior. Range and fast-charging capability also depend to a large extent – especially at high or low outside temperatures – on whether the battery, for example, can be kept within a suitable temperature window. “Thermal management has a significant influence on the efficiency and comfort of the vehicle,” says Dr. Jochen Schröder, Head of Electromobility at Schaeffler. For this reason, the company already offers thermal management systems for all types of vehicle drives. Schaeffler is now breaking new ground in further development. For example, the thermal system, which was previously usually considered separately, is being combined with the drive components of a classic E-axle. This results in a highly integrated and compact overall system that requires significantly less installation space than non-integrated solutions. Since unnecessary hoses and cables are dispensed with, less energy is also lost in the form of heat. “The biggest advantage of the 4in1 system, apart from its compact design, is the optimization of the interaction between the individual subsystems,” says Schröder. This is because the experts considered both the thermal behavior of individual drive components, such as the electric motor or the power electronics, and the most efficient and overarching thermal management of the entire vehicle. An intelligent control system ensures that excess heat from the power electronics and electric motor is efficiently dissipated and used in the vehicle interior.
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The supplier realizes further efficiency benefits with a new heat pump that uses the natural refrigerant carbon dioxide. Not only does it pollute the environment significantly less than conventional refrigerants, it also has physical properties that allow vehicles to be heated and cooled more efficiently. As a result, says Schröder, the 4in1 E-axis achieves higher efficiency for the overall system. With an optimally designed system, up to 96 percent efficiency is possible. Every percentage point more translates into a higher range.
With the 4in1-E axle, Schaeffler is developing its most comprehensive drive system for electric cars to date. Such highly integrated complete systems are interesting for both established car manufacturers and new players, they say. This is because it allows development times to be shortened and costs for complex new developments of the entire drive system to be saved. With its concept of continuing to offer individual components and modules, Schaeffler wants to tap into a particularly large market, especially since e-axles will be used in the future in everything from passenger cars to light commercial vehicles – both in vehicles with purely electric drives and with fuel cell drives. The supplier is even developing suitably adapted electric axles and components for electrification in commercial vehicles and heavy-duty applications.
For the electrification of medium-duty pickup trucks, especially for the North American market, Schaeffler will in future develop and manufacture a so-called electric rigid axle, Beam E axle for short. The electric motor, transmission, power electronics, and the entire rear axle will be connected together and delivered to customers as a ready-to-install unit. Such axles are then more than two meters wide. Schaeffler has already secured its first orders for electric rigid axles from automobile manufacturers. The company is thus entering a new market segment for electric axle drives.
Schaeffler manufactures the components of the E-axis at several locations. The plant in Szombathely, Hungary, started operations in September 2021. The production location is the Schaeffler Group’s first pure e-mobility plant worldwide and at the same time a new center of excellence for the manufacture of components and systems for electrified drives. In addition, components for e-mobility and integrated electric axle drives are manufactured in Taicang, China. Another production facility is being built in Wooster, North America, where hybrid modules are already being manufactured today. In Bühl, the headquarters of Schaeffler’s Automotive division, the new global lead plant for electric motors is currently being built.
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