E-Mobility Engineering 016 l Aurora Powertrains eSled dossier l In Conversation: Thomas de Lange l Automated manufacturing focus l Torque sensing insight l Battery Show Europe 2022 report l Sodium batteries insight l User interfaces focus

Dymag’s CEO tells Rory Jackson about the company’s composite EV wheel technology and the advantages it o ers over traditional counterparts Thewheel deal A s many readers know, competitive engineering of e-mobility systems takes more than just high-quality electric parts: there is far more to an EV than its battery, motor and inverter. Many of the most cutting-edge and game-changing electric road, off-road, sea and air vehicles simply would not exist without innovations in non-electric components. When it comes to maximising actual kilometres per kilowatt, attention has to be paid to subsystems such as transmissions, suspensions, tyres and lightweight materials. Among the non-electric components going into an EV, the wheel is probably not something most of us would think to reinvent. Yet the innovations in this respect by lightweight wheel manufacturer Dymag have drawn the attention of some of the world’s most high-profile EV companies. The wheels from this UK-based company stand to make as big a difference to EVs as any of the advances in aerodynamics, battery cells and power semiconductors in the past decade. CEO of Dymag Thomas de Lange came to the company after a career across motorsport and product engineering. A childhood love of watching car racing culminated in a work experience internship with US- based Penske Racing beginning in 1995, as he went from secondary to tertiary education, after which he studied Aerospace Engineering at the University of Southampton, in the south of England, largely because that was where Penske did its testing. His 4 years at the university were followed by a career in aero for various Penske teams, as well as Renault’s Formula One team, with a subsequent 6-year stint at technology company Dyson instilling in him an understanding of how rapid innovation, project iterations and productionisation could be achieved. He has taught this project engineering philosophy to his colleagues at Dymag since joining it as COO in mid-2019 (becoming CEO in December 2020). The composite wheel The innovation that fascinated de Lange and drew him to join Dymag is its carbon composite wheel technology, which it pioneered in the mid-1990s; motorbikes were its initial market before it began manufacturing for cars in 2004. Its wheels consist of a resin-reinforced The Dymag carbon composite wheel greatly reduces the rolling mass of EVs, and ;Oomas de 3ange is overseeing eɈorts to mass produce it 0mages courtesy of +ymag 16 Winter 2022 | E-Mobility Engineering