A RENAISSANCE FOR ELECTRIC MOTOR MANUFACTURING IN THE UK? The UK was once a volume manufacturer of industrial electric motors with names such as Brook Compton and GEC being known around the world. Over time, most of these large-scale operations moved abroad to locations with lower production costs, were absorbed by multinational players, or disappeared entirely. Today, the UK still has a motor manufacturers, but they tend to be smaller and more specialised, and they are often subsidiaries of overseas players. The Chinese manufacturer Wolong, for example, now owns the Brook Crompton brand, along with Morley and Laurence Scott, while Parvalux is part of the Swiss maxon group. And located, somewhat incongrously, in a gleaming 11,000m2 factory on the outskirts of London, you’ll find Heidenhain’s servo and spindle motor producing subsidiary, SEM. Then there are the niche specialists, such as PMW Dynamics and the Lynch Motor Company, both experts in a topology – the “pancake” motor – which they produce in relatively small numbers, often for bespoke projects. The UK electric motor industry has been given a new lease of life in recent years by companies emerging to serve the potentially lucrative electric vehicle market. Perhaps the best-known of these is Yasa which spun out of Oxford University with an axial-flux technology that so impressed Mercedes-Benz that it bought the business in 2021. Yasa has recently announced that it is moving its 400 staff into new headquarters in Oxfordshire next year. Another developer of EV drivetrains is Norfolk-based Equipmake, founded in 1997, whose systems have been used to power vehicles ranging from hypercars to electric buses. And in Wales, an electric drive developer, DG Innovate, claims to have developed one of the world’s most efficient electric motors (98.5%) and has recently announced plans to establish a joint venture to produce its Pareta drive system with India’s fastest-growing electric truck company, EVage Motors. The vehicle motors market is fiercely competitive and not all contenders survive, as was demonstrated recently when another axial-flux specialist, Saietta, went into administration. But Saietta’s assets and intellectual property have since been acquired by the Japanese-headquartered Exedy group, so its expertise and technologies may yet survive. Against this background, a new report from the Government-backed Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) makes interesting reading (see page 12). It argues that the UK could again have a healthy future as a volume manufacturer of electric motors, provided that it makes the right choices. It suggests that focusing on particular technologies – such as induction-based and electrically excited synchronous motors – could pay dividends and help UK manufacturers to capture a healthy slice of a European market that is predicted to expand to more than £27bn over the coming decade. To do this, will require investments in supply chains for materials such as rare-earths, electrical steels and copper, but it could pay off in the long run, with Britain again being counted among the global leaders in electric motor production. Tony Sacks, Editor n COMMENT MODULAR AN CONTROLLERS I/OS INTEGRA Service e Softwar Hardware STEPPER CLOSED LO STEPLESS™ TECHNO T-IN BRUSHLESS OR STEP AC A PLC / SMART DRIVES 400VAC OR 230V ALL BUIL OPCONTROL OLOGY WITH BRUSHLESS MOTORS LESS M COM NEW 2024 ODER XES Y GEARBOX PLANETARY PRECISION R MOTION CONTROL FOR INDUSTRIAL MPLETE SYSTEMS NEC, BIRMINGHAM BOOTH C26 AND! C TA JUNE 20 COME VISIT , BIRMINGHAM 4 - 6 JUNE 202 6 JUNE 2024 T A OURST BOO OURSTAND! STEPPER WITH ENC STEPLESS In automation, speed is ever systems with turnkey configurat Our solutions are flexible, open The result: high performing mult ything. CMZ e tions reducing the time to market for O to connectivity and customizable upon ti-axis control with unique and special f ftware complete EMs of automatic machines. customer's project. eatures. cmz.it IN ITALY
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