The Japanese company Nidec, by the way of releasing its Q4 financial results, announced a major expansion of its business (including tripling revenues) over the coming years through focusing on electric vehicle powertrains.
The idea is to use its tremendous experience in electric motors, produced for various applications including the automotive industry, which experiences now a disruption and switch from ICE to EVs.
Nidec already produces xEV powertrains, including electric motors, power electronics (inverters, DC/DC converters) and transmissions in volume.
In Europe, the major customer is PSA Group, which officially inaugurated its electrified powertrain assembly line at the Trémery engine plant in France on November 20, 2019. Nidec is a key partner in the project, which is expected to result in annual production of:
- 120,000 units in 2020
- 180,000 units in 2021
- up to 900,000 around 2025
In China, Nidec is supplying e-axle to GAC‘s Aion S all-electric sedan (and following models). The two also jointly produce the e-axles in China through a joint venture.
So far, more than 33,000 e-axles were produced for the Aion-series EVs (the LX is a new model).
The plan for the upcoming few years envisions new e-axle models:
- April 2019: Ni150 Ex Series (150 kW)
- 2020 (planned): Ni100 Ex Series (100 kW)
- 2021 (planned): Ni70 Ex Series (70 kW)
- 2022 (planned): Ni50 Ex Series (50 kW)
- 2023 (planned): Ni200 Ex Series (200 kW)
- 2020 (planned): Fully coupled electromechanical model
The electric vehicle powertrain business will be expanded both organically, as well as through mergers and acquisitions (“M&A” on the chart below), which might be quite interesting.
According to Reuters,:
“Nidec’s plan is to boost annual revenue to 5 trillion yen ($46 billion) by 2025, the sources said, from 1.55 trillion yen forecast for its financial year ending in March.
Founder and CEO Shigenobu Nagamori has in the past alluded to a company vision of 10 trillion yen in revenue by 2030 but has not mapped out specific steps to achieve such a target.”
““The EV motor system is key to our growth strategy,” said one of the sources, a Nidec insider, referring to integrated EV powertrain systems commonly known as e-axles – technology that incorporates motors, power electronics and transmissions.
“The e-axle market is going to be big, but it is only one half of our twin-pillar growth strategy,” the person said. “The other big key to growth is in mergers and acquisitions of other motor-related technologies.””
“Nidec wants to significantly improve the quality and performance of its e-axles so they become “more efficient, smaller and thus cheaper,” one of the sources said.”
