Fresh Impetus for Batteries

Interview with development director Guido Schmid about the automotive future

Villingen-Schwenningen – Major trends like sustainable mobility, digitalization and autonomous driving provide new technological and entrepreneurial challenges for local automotive suppliers.

For Guido Schmid, electromobility and autonomous driving are no dreams of the future, but daily business. „Our professional competencies and technologies are particularly qualified for those application areas.“ The development director of PM DM (Precision Motors Deutsche Minebea) assures, that PM DM is well prepared for the automotive future.

PM DM began years ago to discover this field intensively. Since 2012 a car manufacturer from the US, known for electric vehicles with a wide range, is one of the customers. The delivered product is a grill shutter, which was adapted from vehicles with combustion engines. It is a drive unit consisting of a transmission, an electric motor, software and interface electronics. The drive system opens and closes the fins depending on the cooling needs. This improves the aerodynamics. In electric vehicles, this technology is used for temperature control of the battery using the wind blast.

„We asked ourselves at a very early stage, which products, solutions and technologies are ready to be modified for future mobility challenges.“ says Guido Schmid, referring to detailed marketing studies of the company. The identified fields of climate control in vehicles, battery management, ventilation systems and electric pumps were prepared for the market actively. Simultaneously an increasing number of enquiries from numerous renowned manufacturers were received, since PM DM is considered as a capable and reliable partner in the automotive sector.

Meanwhile multiple series are running in the field of electromobility. PM DM is also a supplier for the third model by the above-mentioned US customer and with 500.000 advanced orders, the volumina in this area will rise significantly. Furthermore there is an enormous number of new promising enquiries in the automotive sector.

„We have enquiries in the fields of battery management, active spoiler systems, innovative climate control technologies or, in concrete terms, the coverage for a charging connector for a well-known OEM, which will come onto the market in the upcoming year.“ says Guido Schmid.

PM DM is a part of the Japanese MinebeaMitsumi Group with headquarter in Tokyo. The company lives and works in both worlds at the moment. Actuators, interlinking, aerodynamics and sensor systems affect vehicles with conventional drive systems as well.

Thomas Albiez, managing director of the „IHK“ considers this as a wise strategy: „As long as it is not clearly predictable, which drive technologies will catch on finally, manufacturers and suppliers need to pursue multi-track strategies. PM DM excellently succeeds in achieving a balance between proactive market development and advancement of consisting business strategies.“

For Albiez it is important to support local companies to find the right balance, since a multi-track strategy results in an increasing management complexity and expenses. „Therefore it is necessary, to achieve clarity, in which direction the journey takes the industry, as soon as possible“, says Albiez. With symposia, political contacts and the exchange of information via the cluster organisation „TechnologyMountains“, a broad support is provided by the „IHK“.