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

composite wheels are by far the less expensive and simpler choice. “Even if they do something similar and better understood, such as changing their roofs to carbon fibre, there’s a limit to how much of the body and chassis you can make from composite before you start running out of materials to lower the sprung mass of your EV. Wheels would be the obvious next choice, and our patented technologies are the most validated for achieving that.” In addition to enhancing range, acceleration and feel, de Lange notes that the physical advantages of the Dymag wheel also translate to reduced NVH for EVs. A heavier wheel naturally requires a more robust suspension and spring settings, meaning more noise and discomfort for passenger and powertrain alike. “And if the trend towards larger wheels continues, designers will be going to 25 or 26 in wheels before long,” de Lange cautions. “If you make those from cast aluminium, a car will literally risk shaking itself to bits.” These advantages have led to the wheel being adopted in a wide range of new EVs and upcoming e-mobility demonstrators. While many of them are still subject to NDAs, a few high- profile platforms are known to be using Dymag’s technology. The best known of these is the Fisker EMotion, Henrik Fisker’s all-electric luxury sport sedan that was unveiled in October 2016. This high-end EV was designed to use four composite wheels (among other technologies) to achieve a top speed of 260 kph and a range of 640 km between charges. While the US company is focused these days on its more economical solar-electric Ocean SUV, de Lange notes that the composite wheels would still be a good fit for some of Fisker’s future projects, or even the EMotion depending on Fisker’s future plans for the EV. In the UK, the hydrogen-electric Apricale hypercar from Viritech is being built with four magnesium-carbon hybrid wheels, which Dymag developed in conjunction with the company. “That’s a great EV project to be involved with,” de Lange says. “It’s as much a product as it is a demonstrator for Viritech’s engineering philosophy in their other EVs, and we continue to work closely with them on carbon wheel technologies that are optimised to work holistically with their fuel cell powertrain and racing-inspired chassis. There’ll be some announcements on that front in the near future. “It’s worth noting though that the vast majority of interested parties we’re talking to, both well-established OEMs and start-ups, are in the battery-electric realm. Many of them actually found out about us through aftermarket sources, such as Tesla tuners in California and suchlike. Tesla wheels are pretty heavy, to be honest, so it’s become a trend for Tesla owners to enhance their rides by getting our wheels installed on their models.” Future plans At the time of writing, de Lange and his engineers were satisfied with the progress they have made over the past few years in cost-optimising their wheels and designing them for manufacturability. The next step, he says, is to scale up production capacity from around 2000 units a year to 10,000 or more. “We’ve signed a memorandum of understanding with Hankuk Carbon in South Korea, and we’re working together to automate and scale up our production process, which will be the main enabler in hitting those higher output figures by the end of this year,” de Lange says. “Over the next year or so, we’ll also be fleshing out a concept for a microfactory, which will allow us to make our rims and wheels in the tens of thousands a year. “On top of that, the cell-based nature of the microfactories will allow us to set them up flexibly and at much lower capital cost than traditional factories, and position them where the OEMs actually want them, which will save hugely on emissions and shipping costs.” The company is also investigating various other ways to make its operations more sustainable and suitable for EVs in the future. These include methods for recycling composites, new materials that could be leveraged in future wheels, and systems for simulating and testing how different wheels work in different EV drivetrains, as a holistic analysis of how the wheels will perform as part of a system. “We’re experimenting with a lot of materials and digital twinning techniques at the moment,” de Lange says. “Recycling is a little harder to go into specific details on, as it’s still difficult to remanufacture 100% of composite structural parts, but we’re seeing great examples of composite reuse. For instance, companies such as Fisker are successfully using recycled carbon in their wheel inserts. If you’ll forgive the pun, we’re determined to make production of our wheels as ‘circular’ as possible.” Winter 2022 | E-Mobility Engineering 19 InConversation | Thomas de Lange