GROB - into the electrical future with an established foothold

Against the background of its decades of experience in the manufacture of highly efficient production and assembly systems, GROB has been investing heavily in the field of electric mobility for more than six years. With its large number of new developments, GROB is in an excellent position to cope with the constant technological changes in alternative drive systems and to meet the requirements of the automotive industry and its suppliers. Nearly all major automobile manufacturers in Germany, including such renowned companies as Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler, as well as the American automobile manufacturers Ford, Tesla and General Motors or Renault/Nissan in France and companies in Asia, rely on electric mobility by GROB. GROB e-mobility is also used in the automotive supply industry as well as by Valeo Siemens. Due to the currently extremely good market response, it can be assumed that sales of the New Technologies business unit (e-mobility, battery modules, battery cells) will continue to grow disproportionately within the GROB Group.

Tailor-made solutions for all customer requirements

Despite the global turbulence in the first half of the year, more than 15 stator and rotor projects for complex assembly systems as well as prototype orders for the delivery period 2020/2021 have so far been won. In recent months, the combination of concentrated know-how and creative solutions has led to rapid further development and optimization of GROB hairpin technologies for the stators of electric drives. A wide variety of sheet metal packages and complex Hairpin wire requirements are processed with customized concepts in systems suitable for large-scale production, proving that GROB is the right partner in electric mobility.

In addition, the large machine park at the Mindelheim site enables an extensive range of services for the construction of prototypes, as well as the joint design of customer products, from planning to the final implementation of assembly systems. This wide range of technical solutions for stators, rotors, e-machines including complete e-axes offers the best answers to individual customer requirements, not only at the Mindelheim site. For example, in the spring of this year the Technical Application Center for E-Mobility at our Chinese plant in Dalian based on the model of Mindelheim was inaugurated in order to be able to manufacture stator prototypes here in the important Asian market as well.

Pioneer in battery module assembly

With growing requirements for automotive powertrains, the reliable assembly of battery systems as well as the efficient production of battery cells have also become increasingly important. In the development and manufacture of highly automated production systems for the production of energy storage devices, GROB benefits from its many years of experience in assembly technology. The high demands on quality and safety intensify the technically demanding basic conditions of the production steps that had to be undertaken by GROB during the past months. The fact that GROB has successfully mastered these challenges is proven by the extremely good market response with currently more than ten confirmed orders for battery module assembly. Besides battery module assembly, GROB is currently developing innovative solutions for the battery cell assembly of lithium-ion cells. A dedicated application laboratory was created especially for the process development of new and scalable manufacturing methods.