Another of our systems, this time our HDSRM300T motor is waiting anxiously to begin its long journey to the other side of the world in the next few days. Part of an Anglo European consortium to supply axle systems suitable for the harshest environments, AEM are supplying a system for one of Australia’s leading providers of integrated logistics solutions to help improve the supply of raw materials from the country’s vast mining activities.
Part of an innovative solution which uses e-axle technology to both reduce emissions and increase load capacity, the motor will be going on trial on some Australia’s most demanding routes, testing its rugged design to the limits – we’re all looking forward to the challenge and confidently expect to bring you some positive updates as the motor begins working down under.
AEMR completed its first Innovate UK funded programme this week with positive feedback from everyone involved. The programme focused on proving our SSRD motor technology could deliver market leading performance as well as world leading sustainability. Working closely with Bentley Motors and fellow SME, TTPi, AEMR has taken the system, originally designed to deliver cost effective and highly sustainable solutions to the mainstream passenger car market, and demonstrated its potential to deliver world class performance in a compact and highly efficient package. In completing the programme AEMR also managed to generate 10 new innovative ideas which we’re currently looking to patent pushing SSRD even further ahead of the field!
APEX is phase one of a programme that aims to bring SSRD to market in a quick and focused way… hopefully we will be able to tell you more about what happens next very soon!
We’ve been kept busy during lockdown delivering the first milestone in demonstrating the durability of our HDSRM300 system. Designed and built to meet the challenges of the Commercial Vehicle sector HDSRM300 has been shaped to deliver robust and extremely efficient performance over the typical drive cycles of trucks and other commercial vehicles. The engineering and test teams have been busy over the last few months building bespoke test systems and putting all our motors through their paces. While SSRD, our high performance passenger car solution has just entered its preliminary test phase, HDSRM has been putting in the hard miles building up our knowledge and confidence in a system designed to deliver over 100,000kms a year. We’ve reached the first target milestone of 500 hours (a mere 15,000kms) in just a couple of months and we’re now pushing ahead to our next target of 2000 hours before building an accelerated test programme to deliver 20,000 hours and more early next year.
Our first HDSRM300 has left the factory for distant shores today as we have shipped a system for light duty delivery trucks to Mexico. The system is part of an ambitious programme to electrify a fleet of up to 5000 vehicles for a major food distribution company across South America. Despite the challenges which COVID has presented, our manufacturing team has been able to prepare the motor on time to meet customer demands while our engineers have been working with colleagues in Mexico to make sure everything is ready for its arrival.
Well done to everyone involved, this is the first of several exports planned over the next few months with places as far away as Australia keen to join the AEM family… We’ll keep you updated with progress as we continue to move things forward.
We’re very proud to have been shortlisted for the North East Automotive Alliance SME of the year 2020.
The award looks to recognise companies who, over the last two years have been successful in overcoming the challenges in driving forward their business plan and exceeding business objectives, as well as being able to demonstrate sustainable business and financial planning, all together with positive team engagement and, of course, a strong future growth ambition!
As part of the incredible EV community here in the North East its fantastic to be recognised so early on our journey – thanks to the panel and the team at NEAA for their support.
In a great way to finish the year AEM has closed out its series A investment, round bringing in almost 60% more funding than we originally planned. This means we can accelerate our growth plans even further in 2020!
Please see the press release below for details – and have a great Christmas!
AEM complete milestone funding round to bring fundraising to over £5m in 2019
North East company, Advanced Electric Machines (AEM) has completed a Series A funding round for £1.9m, to close out a successful year with over £5m of funds being secured.
Since forming in March 2017 AEM, a spin-out from Newcastle University which designs and manufactures electric motors and drive technologies for the transport sector, has achieved milestones including:
– Winning collaborative research and development projects worth over £16m (receiving over £4.5m of grants and loans directly), starting product development programmes with over 25 organisations including Bentley Motors and CNH International
– Moving to a new 1200m2 facility in Washington capable of building 50,000 motor p.a. and achieving ISO9001 for design and manufacturing processes, driving growth of the team to 17 people
Recognised by the Engineer Magazine as a leading innovator, having been awarded both the automotive and overall cross-sector ‘Collaborate to Innovate’ awards for their HDSRM product, AEM has already received their first large commercial order and is now working on opportunities across four continents and six different sectors including automotive, aerospace, marine and energy.
The funding round, led by Northstar Ventures which has invested £750,000 from the North East Innovation Fund, supported by the European Regional Development Fund and managed by Northstar Ventures, will support the next phase of growth.
Prof. James Widmer, CEO, said “This latest investment raised almost 60% additional capital above the original target, it will allow AEM to invest in our design and manufacturing capability more quickly than we expected. We are grateful to Northstar, Saker Capital, Tevva and the many small investors who are now supporting us in our vision of manufacturing the most sustainable electric motor technologies on the planet here in the UK.”
Alex Buchan, Investment Manager at Northstar Ventures, said “Electrification is a key enabler for many sectors and we have real strength in the technologies that will drive it here in the region. We are pleased to be able to support one of the UK’s rising stars in electric motor design and manufacture and help them create jobs in the North East.”.
ENDS
Editor’s notes:
Advanced Electric Machines Group
Advanced Electric Machines Group Ltd. (AEMG) is a motor design and manufacturing business with a focus on magnet free motor designs. Current facilities based in Washington support low/medium volume production (up to 10,000’s per customer) which AEMG will supply to customers individually or with power electronics and transmissions as a complete ‘drive’ system. AEMG is currently focused on the development and production of three motor designs, HDSRM (for commercial vehicle and off-highway applications), SSRD (for passenger car applications) and HEAD (for aerospace applications) and the commercialisation of unique manufacturing IP for the production of motor laminations, wound coils and high performance gears. Focused on working with UK Supply Chain partners AEMG was one of the lead authors of ‘Driving the Electric Revolution’ a recently created £80m government fund to support innovation in the Power Electronics, Machines and Drives (PEMD) sector.
Northstar Ventures Limited
Northstar Ventures is a venture capital and social investment firm based in the North East. We provide funding for innovative, scalable businesses and high impact social enterprises. We’ve been supporting entrepreneurs since 2004, seeking out strong teams with great ideas that will drive high growth, scalable businesses, and sustainable charities. As the North East’s leading early stage investor, we have invested over £100m into start-ups, early stage businesses and high impact social enterprises in the region. Our investment managers have a wealth of experience supporting new and growing businesses and bring commercial and operational experience, PhDs and MBAs, international careers and a micro-business or two.
Information About The North East Fund
The North East Fund is a suite five venture capital and loan funds which was established in April 2018, to invest £120m in around 600 North East businesses in the period to March 2023. The fund managers provide business development advice and investment finance to small and medium sized enterprises based in the seven Local Authority areas of North East England: Northumberland, North Tyneside, Newcastle, South Tyneside, Gateshead Sunderland and County Durham. The programme encourages investment in and the commercialisation of new technologies, including low carbon technologies, as well as stimulating new business creation, private investment and entrepreneurialism in the North East, with a view to creating over 2,500 new jobs. The North East Fund has overall responsibility for the programme, which is delivered through five separate funds, each managed by independent, FCA regulated fund managers. Details of these, and up to date information on the progress of the programme, is available on The North East Fund’s website: www.northeastfund.org
The North East Fund has been established with funding from the North East of England European Regional Development Fund programme, the European Investment Bank and from returns on previous North East based, publicly supported investment funds. It is jointly owned by the seven North East local authorities
Information About the European Regional Development Fund
The North East Fund will receive up to £58,500,000 of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government is the Managing Authority for European Regional Development Fund. Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regenerations. For more information visit https://www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding.
Information About the European Investment Bank
The European Investment Bank (EIB) will lend up to £60,000,000 to the North East Fund programme. The European Investment Bank is the long-term lending institution of the European Union owned by its Member States. It makes long-term finance available for sound investment in order to contribute towards EU policy goals. For more information, visit: http://www.eib.org/about/index.htm
Last Night James and Andy were down in London with some partners collecting two awards from the Engineer Magazine for the successful launch of our HDSRM product. We won both the Automotive and the overall ‘Grand Prix’ Awards at the ‘Collaborate to Innovate’ (C2I) event for the story of how HDSRM moved from a University concept to a fully commercial product.
The video below helps tell the story in our own
words.
In competition with industry giants such as BAE Systems, McLaren Automotive, Airbus, Rolls Royce and leading Universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Warwick, Nottingham, Manchester and Bristol, AEM was chosen because of the huge promise it shows for the sector.
We are very proud of our collaborations and HDSRM would not have happened without the support of Newcastle University, Tevva Motors, Motor Design Limited and Innovate UK, so a big well done and thanks to them too!
New press coverage from the LA Times showing the impact of the increased use of Rare Earths in Electric Vehicles and other applications – this is why it is AEM’s mission to design these materials out of our traction motors.
Although We’ve been quiet for a while it doesn’t mean things haven’t been busy at AEM. Today the results have been announced for the Innovate UK IDP15 grant funding competition and the group is pleased to announce we’re playing a leading role in 4 of the successful projects!
The projects support both our HDSRM and SSRD technologies and bring us a further significant boost towards developing our next generation of designs.
We’ll tell you more about each project in the next few weeks but in the meantime here’s a link to the full list of winners – congratulations to all of those innovators who’ve been successful this time
Future Powertrain Conference 2019 was the first time that both AEM and AEMR have exhibited at a UK low carbon vehicle event.
A little under 12 months after AEMR was formed we were able to show the work we have been doing with key end user customers in developing our new motor concepts into technologies which meet both the performance characteristics and package demands of future vehicles. We were also able to show the latest version of our current HDSRM product ready to be produced in volume in our new facility in Washington.
Always a go to date on the UK calendar FPC generated lots of interest from the stand with over 40 new contacts and enquiries looking to work with us gong forward.
It was noticeable that there was a focus on the broader sustainability challenge that we still face as electrification gathers momentum with a great paper from the Mahle Powertrain team highlighting the particular impact energy generation methods may have on CO2 emissions during both the manufacturing and in-use phase of an electric vehicle. The UK was currently very much middle of the pack where Europe was concerned, beating both Germany and Eastern European countries but still with work to do to rival France and Sweden.
Sustainability remains a key driver for us as we continue to shape our future technologies, we believe our magnet free solutions continue to offer a cleaner route to traction with no compromise in performance…
We’re currently working through the contacts we made and hope to follow up with everyone soon but please feel free to let us know if you need us to get back to you quickly
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