Drives & Controls July / August 2022

n NEWS July/August 2022 www.drivesncontrols.com 6 SOARINGDEMAND FOR electrical steels for use in EV (electric vehicle) motors is pushing up prices and lengthening lead times for industrial and commercial motors, a market analyst is warning. The price of cold-rolled electrical steels – which represent about 20% of the material costs of a motor – has rocketed by more by 400% since January 2016, according to Interact Analysis. This has contributed to a 35-40% increase in average selling prices of motors since January 2020, and further rises could be on the way. In a recent blog, Blake Griffin, a senior analyst with Interact, warns that the rising price of electrical steels is likely to challenge motor vendors’ability to produce machines“for years to come”. Traditionally, motor manufacturers have been a major buyer of cold-rolled electrical steels and have had little difficulty obtaining supplies. However, the growing demand for EV motors is undermining their bargaining power, Griffin reports.“As this trend progresses, it will impact vendors’ability to secure the electric steel necessary for production, resulting in longer lead times and higher prices.” The cold-rolled steel used for electrical steels makes up a relatively small part of total steel demand. The production process is extremely capital-intensive and it takes a long time to increase production capacity. Short-term Covid-related supply shocks have combined with the increased demand from the automotive sector to quadruple electrical steel prices. Griffin says that Interact has heard multiple reports of electric motor manufacturers having problems obtaining supplies of electrical steel because suppliers are favouring automotive customers who are placing bigger orders. Griffin calculates that if a quarter of the 85 million vehicles produced globally in 2021 were electric, the number of traction motors needed would exceed the 19.2 million LV AC induction motors bought for industrial and commercial applications in 2021. Interact expects the gap between supply and demand for electrical steel to widen over the coming five years, as production capacity lags behind the demand for EV motors.“This will ultimately result in supply shortages which will manifest in longer lead times and higher prices for motors,” Griffin warns. The solution, he adds, lies in the hands of the steel producers. “More electrical steel needs to be produced to close the gap between supply and demand. We expect this to happen – albeit slowly. “While the steel industry works to resolve this, we expect that motor suppliers which are more vertically integrated within their supply chains – particularly their steel supply – will begin winning share on the basis of lower lead times and lower prices, while the rest of the market struggles to secure materials.” www.interactanalysis.com Soaring steel costs are hitting motor prices and lead times p After two years of contraction, the global market for industrial robots grew by more than 30% in 2021 to exceed $11.8bn, according to a new report from Interact Analysis . Covid and labour shortages have “turbo- charged” the market, it adds, predicting that sales will reach almost $20bn by 2026. However short-term worries remain over supply chains, inflation and new waves of Covid causing lockdowns in China. Interact was previously expecting robot prices to drop, but now reports that there were ”dramatic” prices increases during 2021, and these are likely to continue. www.interactanalysis.com p The UK government has used a national security law to block the University of Manchester from licencing a machine vision technology to a Chinese company, Beijing Infinite Vision Technology . The technology, known as Scamp, pre-processes images and sends only vital data to vision algorithms. It also measures time-of-flight data and allows bidirectional flows of data between sensors and motor controls. It manages data across three layers – sensing, visual perception and control – resulting “highly agile” robotic systems. p Siemens has bought the Southampton-based predictive maintenance and industrial analytics specialist Senseye for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition will expand Siemens’ predictive maintenance and asset intelligence portfolio. Senseye provides software-based predictive maintenance technologies to manufacturers and industrial companies around the world on a software-as-a- service basis. It claims that its technologies can cut unplanned machine downtime by up to 50%, while boosting maintenance staff productivity by up to 30%. p Schneider Electric is selling its UK-headquartered Eurotherm business to Watlow , a US designer and manufacturer of industrial thermal systems, for an undisclosed sum. Eurotherm supplies temperature, power and process control, measurement and data management equipment, systems, software and services to markets around the world. Its headquarters are in Worthing, UK and it has a manufacturing operation in Poland. It employs around 650 people worldwide. NEWS BRIEFS Cold-rolled steel prices from January 2016 to May 2022 (percentage change relative to Jan 2016) Source: Interact Analysis Mitsubishi Electric is investing around £23m to build a newplant in India that will manufacture inverters and other factory automation (FA) products. The factory, due to start operating in December 2023, will meet growing demand in India where the FAmarket is expanding at an annual rate of about 8% –mainly in industries such as automobiles, food & beverage, pharmaceuticals and textiles. The development will make India Mitsubishi’s third major base for manufacturing FA products, in addition to Japan and China. The company recently announced a $110mplan to build another FA factory in Japan. Mitsubishi hopes to double its current Indian sales of around $76mby 2025, and to start exporting products to South-East Asia and Europe. The newdouble-storey 15,400m 2 factory will be built on 40,000m 2 of land near Pune. In the year toMarch 31 2022, Mitsubishi’s industrial automation division generated revenues of 1,460 billion yen – a 17% increase on the previous year. £23m automation factory will target expanding Indian market