Preparing for an outstanding electric powertrain

[kscarbel2]

Scania Group Press Release  /  January 16, 2020

Scania’s axle and gearbox plant is readying itself for mass production of the battery electric powertrain.

E-mobility has now come to Scania’s axle and gearbox assembly workshop in Södertälje. With three gearbox prototypes a week being produced for the new battery electric powertrain, technicians and operators are fine-tuning their skills and knowledge in anticipation of the start of customer production this year.

“It’s exciting to work with future technology,” says operator Fredrik Angenent. “It’s also very different from normal assembly here at the workshop. On the assembly line, we put together a part of the product whereas here we assemble the battery electric gearbox from scratch.”

An electrification journey

Angenent and his colleagues assemble the electric machine and gears, axles and high voltage cables to produce a complete gearbox. In total, the electric gearbox consists of approximately 200 components, which substantially fewer than for a combustion engine. The finished product is subsequently tested in an adjacent rig.

“We’ve been planning production for three years, gradually building the assembly line,” says Catarina Hemning, supervisor at eMobility gearbox assembly. “Now we feel prepared for higher volumes.”

Test Development Engineer Thomas Ekbäck, who helped design the test rig, says that Scania has been on an electrification journey:

“We’ve learned loads along the way and there’s still more to learn. But we’ve reached sufficient maturity to provide the market with a competitive electrical gearbox for battery electrical vehicles.”