Horiba expands vehicle testing capacities with electric vehicles
The Japanese development service provider Horiba is expanding its range to include testing solutions for electrified vehicles. The eMobility service spectrum is to be available for the entire range of vehicle types; from passenger cars and heavy commercial vehicles to machines and equipment.
Horiba says it now intends to extend its “global reputation as a leading provider of solutions for the development and certification of conventional powertrains” to the field of electromobility.
The group wants to offer services in all phases relevant to customers, from research, development and validation to certification and end-of-line verification. The portfolio ranges from single component testing to turnkey testing solutions and includes both consulting and other services throughout the vehicle development process, Horiba says.
“As the vehicle industry continues to transition, we have developed applications that allow our customers to build a solution that meets their vehicle development strategy. We understand the regulatory and consumer requirements for cleaner and reliable transportation and are partnering with our customers to meet R&D challenges of future mobility. Having built a global reputation as a leader in the provision of solutions for conventional powertrain development and certification, our attention has moved to e-powertrain where we intend to repeat our success,” said Dr Axel Waldhelm, Global Business Manager Electrification & Global Applications. The solutions are available for all types of electric vehicle drives, including batteries, fuel cells and hybrid systems.
Specifically, Horiba intends to offer analyses at different levels, depending on the phase of the vehicle development and evaluation process. Under the heading of material characterisation, the company initially subsumes the analysis of batteries and fuel cells at the material level, for example in terms of degradation, abrasion and chemical reactions. Alternatively, there are the levels of component, system and complete vehicle, covering the testing and characterisation of electric drive systems and transmissions, batteries and fuel cells, as well as tests of the electric drive train and finally the complete vehicle in the laboratory or on the road.
“The complete solution for electrified vehicles includes a diverse mix of highly precise analytical equipment, chassis and powertrain testing dynamometers, electrification-specific solutions from HORIBA FuelCon and consultancy and validation capability from HORIBA MIRA,” the company sums up in its statement.
Horiba FuelCon came into being in 2018. At the time, Horiba took over the German company FuelCon. About a year later, the company expanded its production facility in Germany. In November 2019, it was announced that around 30 million euros would be invested in a new building in the Technologiepark Ostfalen in Barleben by the end of 2021 and that the number of employees would increase from 110 at the time to up to 360.
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