EVerybody Pay Attention
Electric vehicles are changing the gear industry. If your business is at all attached to the manufacture of automobiles, construction equipment, motorcycles, aircraft, I hope you’re paying attention.
The gears you used to make are going to be changing, if they haven’t already. E-mobility isn’t going away anytime soon.
In fact, it’s clear that the major players in all those industries now consider that e-mobility will need to be a significant core competency over the next several decades. Major automotive manufacturers are investing heavily to ensure their supply chains will be able to support their plans (see Senior Editor Matt Jaster’s article, “The Changing Face of Battery Manufacturing in North America,” on p. 42).
I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. The push for electrification has been steady and well-publicized over the last decade. While it may at first have seemed like automakers were announcing their participation in e-mobility as a publicity stunt, those days are long over. The shift is happening. Real investments have been taking place, and they’ll continue.
Are you worried about your gear manufacturing operation? Are your processes and technologies capable of producing the gears of tomorrow?
If you want to learn more, I have some ideas for you.
Gear Technology will be hosting a session of our “Ask the Expert Live” at the Motion + Power Technology Expo in October (see our show preview article on p. 33). We’ll have a panel of experts discussing the technology required to manufacture EV gears. We’ll be talking about things like NVH and how to control gear whine both through the design process and via gear grinding. We’ll also talk about gear skiving and gear inspection.
