E-Mobility Engineering 015 l EMotive Scarab off-road truck dossier l In Conversation: Giulio Ornella l Hall effect and magnetic sensors focus l Challenge of batteries for heavy-duty EVs l Alpha Motor Corporation digest l Automated charging insight l HVAC systems focus

“That last factor is especially critical because a traditional axle is way, way slimmer than an e-axle that incorporates a motor and inverter. That presents often frustrating challenges with how you’re supposed to integrate it into an EV chassis when you already know so much space is going to be taken up by battery packs.” In May this year, the efforts of Ornella’s team were showcased at the City-I tech show, with electrified rigid-beam axle products such as the Spicer Electrified eS4500r on display. This is a modular, scalable zero-emissions propulsion solution for electric pick-up truck conversions or new builds, as well as light utility vehicles from other OEMs. “On top of names such as Ford and GM, we’ve just been awarded a very large programme with a premium OEM. Its identity can’t be published yet, but it’s one of the first high-volume light vehicle business contracts in our company’s history for a high-performance, fully integrated electric motor/inverter drive package,” Ornella says. “We’ve done small volumes of integrated drive systems for Ferrari and others, but this will probably be for more than $1 billion worth of drive units over the lifetime of the partnership. “As well as investing in our manufacturing facilities, it’ll be critical to keep assessing our competencies in motor design, inverter design, motor control software and so on, while also taking each project stage as an opportunity to learn. The scientific disciplines comprising e-mobility are hugely diverse, and Dana plans to stay on top of all of these.” Future directions As Ornella also closely monitors how new technologies are being leveraged across the ever-evolving world of e-mobility, he sees considerable scope for enhancing key parts of Dana’s r&d processes. “For instance, I see a whole untapped world for us in how engineers are using AI in product development,” he explains. “Teams can now use AI to produce prototypes through simulations and modelling that operate, behave and even fail inside their virtual environments in ways that are closer to how they’d do so in reality. “And I’m not the only one who has seen the value in this. More and more of our customers are now asking that the first ‘prototype’ we deliver to them should be not a physical vehicle but a digital twin. The main reason is that receiving a virtual model closely representative of the physical product on which they can run simulations and analyses will help them achieve faster development processes of new EVs, as well as lower costs relative to focusing on physical iterations.” Enthusiasm for digital twinning is growing especially quickly among Dana’s larger OEM customers, as the new wave of small and agile start-ups across the EV manufacturing space is rapidly bringing all-new electric and hybrid vehicle models to market that are energy-efficient, safe, enjoyable to drive and not too pricey. Technologies that can bring down development costs and lead times are therefore hugely valuable to many of the traditional automotive giants that otherwise cannot match the SMEs for r&d agility. In addition to being less costly to develop, deliver, and test, Ornella also notes that digital models can be more rapidly refined and iterated than their physical counterparts through AI data analytics, the algorithms for which will naturally accumulate greater accuracy and new forms of analysis over time (which cannot be lost, as skilled specialists inevitably can). “AI is also of course used heavily in developing autonomous driving technologies, and while that’s not likely to be part of our product portfolio any time soon, the fact remains that many of our solutions are used in autonomous vehicles, so we need to understand how we could better customise our technologies to fit that market,” he adds. “I’m 100% sure that AI will be used more and more in the day-to-day work at Dana over the next few years. We’re already using it to extract critical samples and actionable information from the terabytes and more of virtual data we generate each week, and new lessons are being learned each time. I really believe we’re just scratching the surface of what AI could enable for EV engineering.” And while mastering electrification is key for Dana’s long-term strategy, Ornella is also pushing his company to maintain a focus on sustainability – that is, investigating materials and supply chains that could be leveraged in its electric powertrain systems to reduce the emissions over their lifespan, from mining through to construction, repair and end-of-life recycling. He anticipates this bringing numerous fruitful results not only in future motor and inverter systems but also in batteries and stationary charging infrastructure as Dana expands its product and competencies portfolio. “In our view, the world is seeing its first generation of real e-mobility technologies right now, and we’re not even at the apex of it yet,” he says. “There will be several generations, and each one will bring new revolutions for dealing with cost, scalability and reliability.” Dana’s latest technologies for independent electric front axles, rear electric beam axles, and battery cooling are gaining great attention in the US pick-up truck market Autumn 2022 | E-Mobility Engineering 19 InConversation | Giulio Ornella