Automotive News Europe - June 2019 - 28

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS EUROPE

SUPPLIERS

UESTIONS FOR

Hakan Yilmaz
How are you positioned when it
comes to providing components to
full-electric vehicles?
With the addition of our planned partnership with battery module and pack supplier Romeo Power Technology we will
have the entire ecosystem all the way
from plug to wheel. Every area where the
EV passes through we have a product.
How do your turbochargers fit into
this electrified future?
Today we are seeing a massive move
toward high-volume hybridization. This
is great for us because we are growing
about two times faster than the market
itself. And, the hybrid architectures with
the biggest growth are very synergistic
with turbos. Therefore, in Europe especially, turbochargers seem to be here to
stay and will continue to grow with the
hybrid market.

Hakan Yilmaz
❚ BorgWarner Chief
Technology Officer
❚ 41
❚ Started current
job in 2018

hat products in your portfolio
give you the greatest hope for
the future?
If you are talking about immediate impact,
we see a massive volume shift toward 48volt and high-voltage hybrids, driven by
the tougher CO2 legislation [that starts
to come into effect in Europe next year].
There, our primary focus is on the 48-volt
side. Secondly, we are seeing great demand for our P2 On-Axis drive module
[which converts a combustion-powered
vehicle into a hybrid without changing the
engine or transmission.]. It is an easy way
of achieving hybridization because all you
need to do is open up a space of about 6
inches (about 150mm) between your engine and transmission and packaged it in.
Is the solution scalable?
Yes. You can start with a 48-volt hybrid
P2 On-Axis for the 2020-22 timeframe
and on the same architecture in 2025
you can upgrade that to a high-voltage
solution. For 2030 [when even tougher
EU CO2 rules take effect], you can up-

www.autonewseurope.com

grade that system by adding some batteries and downsizing your transmission
to come up with a plug-in hybrid. That
means if you add the P2 architecture to
your propulsion system now, it is there
to stay for at least a decade. This is why
we are seeing such strong growth.
Could you quantify that?
Eighteen customers have ordered or
are in development with us on pieces of
the P2 that they will integrate in-house.
Two of those customers have bought the
complete P2 module. Our first launch is in
China at the end of next year. And, we are
not talking about a few thousand units.
We are talking about multiple hundreds of
thousands of units.

"In the electrification
market if you are
not one of the first
three you are out."

Is that true even with plug-in hybrids
and electric vehicles?
You might need fewer turbos but even
so most of the automakers are announcing that they will keep their turbo engines
even with plug-in hybrids because European customers are used to the performance
they get with a turbo. You can downsize
your engine and leverage the electrical
power to compensate, and that gives you
an additional fuel economy benefit.
Do all of these changes require you to
find new Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers?
The products that we have today are
very different than the product we had
five years ago. And the products that we
will have in the next five years will be
very different than what we have now.
Therefore, we have to adapt our supplier
base continuously otherwise we will be
behind. In the electrification market if
you are not one of the first three in the
market before the market consolidates
you are out. It is very competitive. We
live through this with turbochargers.
Right now the turbocharger market is
dominated by a handful of suppliers and
we are one of them because we were so
quick to market.
-- Douglas A. Bolduc

JUNE 2019

http://www.autonewseurope.com

Automotive News Europe - June 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive News Europe - June 2019