Two-wheeler novelties at motorcycle show

The inter­na­tion­al sup­pli­er of mod­ern dri­ve tech­nolo­gies “Vitesco Tech­nolo­gies” is also clear­ly focus­ing on elec­tri­fi­ca­tion in the two-wheel­er sec­tor. In addi­tion to its expe­ri­ence in this mar­ket, the com­pa­ny can draw on its exten­sive know-how and series prod­ucts in the auto­mo­tive sec­tor. At the EICMA motor­cy­cle show (Novem­ber 23–28, 23/24 trade vis­i­tor days), Vitesco Tech­nolo­gies is now pre­sent­ing its wide range of two-wheel­er inno­va­tions: from pure­ly elec­tric dri­ve sys­tems for light motor­cy­cles and scoot­ers to the demon­stra­tion ver­sion of a hybrid motor­cy­cle and oth­er elec­tri­fi­ca­tion solu­tions to emis­sion-reduc­ing sys­tems for a wide vari­ety of two-wheel­er and pow­er­sports applications.

48-volt drive system targets Asian volume markets

The 48-volt sys­tem, which Vitesco Tech­nolo­gies is pre­sent­ing for the first time in Milan, is designed for a pow­er range of 3 to 7 kW and thus forms the elec­tri­fied equiv­a­lent of small­er motor­ized two-wheel­ers in the pow­er class of up to 150 cc dis­place­ment, which play a cen­tral role above all in the every­day mobil­i­ty of Asian coun­tries. The sys­tem’s elec­tron­ic con­trol unit, an eDCU (Elec­tric Dri­ve Con­trol Unit), includes both the invert­er func­tion and addi­tion­al vehi­cle func­tion­al­i­ties. The e‑machine is equipped with a robust induc­tive rotor posi­tion sen­sor (iRPS). This sen­sor sys­tem ensures high con­trol qual­i­ty, ensur­ing that the elec­tric dri­ve can cope with the most demand­ing dri­ving sit­u­a­tions. Vitesco Tech­nolo­gies is already devel­op­ing the 48-volt sys­tem for series pro­duc­tion (for fur­ther details see sep­a­rate press release).

Hybrid system enables purely electric driving and enhances driving pleasure

Unlike in the 3 to 7 kW seg­ment, where the com­pa­ny expects a very dynam­ic shift towards pure­ly elec­tric dri­ves in the near future, the com­pa­ny assumes that hybrid solu­tions will play an impor­tant role in a tran­si­tion phase for larg­er motor­cy­cles — because future CO2 lim­its can no longer be achieved by mea­sures on the com­bus­tion engine alone. In the hybrid motor­cy­cle demon­stra­tor pre­sent­ed in Milan, the addi­tion­al elec­tric machine is a stan­dard belt-dri­ven 48-volt starter gen­er­a­tor from the auto­mo­tive sec­tor, where Vitesco Tech­nolo­gies has already been using 48-volt hybridiza­tion since 2016. The starter gen­er­a­tor also makes it pos­si­ble to dri­ve short­er dis­tances in pure­ly elec­tric mode, espe­cial­ly in city traf­fic. It also enhances dri­ving plea­sure because it brings a notice­able increase in pow­er, espe­cial­ly for medi­um-sized motorcycles.

A PDCU (Pow­er­train Domain Con­trol Unit) is respon­si­ble for the con­trol strat­e­gy, which is very demand­ing in hybrid sys­tems. This so-called mas­ter con­troller con­trols the 48-volt engine, com­mu­ni­cates with the M4C engine con­trol unit of the com­bus­tion engine and coor­di­nates the two types of dri­ve: it decides when to dri­ve elec­tri­cal­ly, when with the con­ven­tion­al dri­ve and when with both, and also ensures har­mo­nious tran­si­tions between the forms of dri­ve. Anoth­er inno­va­tion of the hybrid motor­cy­cle is an intel­li­gent actu­a­tor (Smart Trans­mis­sion Actu­a­tor) that can shift the trans­mis­sion inde­pen­dent­ly and with­out clutch actu­a­tion. With such an auto­mat­ed man­u­al trans­mis­sion, high CO2 sav­ings can be achieved because the elec­tron­ic con­trol sys­tem can change gears at an opti­mal time in terms of fuel economy.

Broad electrification spectrum from start-stop functionality to high-performance drive systems

The span of Vitesco Tech­nolo­gies’ elec­tri­fi­ca­tion offer­ing is demon­strat­ed by two oth­er exhibits: an Inte­grat­ed Starter Gen­er­a­tor Con­trol Unit and the EMR3 Inte­grat­ed Axle Drive.

The starter gen­er­a­tor con­trol unit allows start-stop func­tion­al­i­ty to be inte­grat­ed into two-wheel­ers up to 250 cc dis­place­ment with lit­tle effort. For this pur­pose, the 12-volt alter­na­tor present in the sys­tem is mod­i­fied so that it func­tions not only as a gen­er­a­tor but also as an actu­a­tor with which the com­bus­tion engine is start­ed. The starter motor can thus be dis­pensed with. The actu­a­tor can also be used to increase dri­ve pow­er in cer­tain dri­ving situations.

The third gen­er­a­tion of the EMR (Elec­tron­ics Motor Reduc­er), which Vitesco Tech­nolo­gies has already been using as stan­dard in numer­ous pas­sen­ger car mod­els since 2019, is a high­ly inte­grat­ed, com­pact and light­weight unit com­pris­ing an elec­tric motor, pow­er elec­tron­ics (invert­er) and reduc­tion gear­box. It lends itself to per­for­mance-ori­ent­ed three- or four-wheeled elec­tric vehi­cles such as side-by-side mod­els or even rick­shaws. Vitesco Tech­nolo­gies recent­ly announced the first such appli­ca­tion out­side the pas­sen­ger car sec­tor: The high-per­for­mance Twike 5 tri­cy­cle, which is to be pro­duced in a small series from the mid­dle of next year, will accel­er­ate to 100 km/h in 3.8 sec­onds thanks to the EMR3 dri­ve, reach a top speed of 190 km/h and set­tle for a com­bined con­sump­tion of just 6.9 kWh per 100 kilo­me­ters (fig­ures based on cur­rent sim­u­la­tions, see sep­a­rate press release for fur­ther details).

New solutions for classic powertrains and high-end motorcycles

After Vitesco Tech­nolo­gies made small­er sin­gle-cylin­der gaso­line engines Blue­tooth-com­pat­i­ble with the M4L_BLE engine man­age­ment sys­tem inte­grat­ed into the throt­tle body, the com­pa­ny is now pre­sent­ing anoth­er M4 vari­ant with a spe­cial func­tion­al fea­ture: The M4REK oper­ates with E‑gas, which means that the throt­tle body is no longer oper­at­ed by Bow­den cable, but is con­trolled elec­tron­i­cal­ly (“Dri­ve by Wire”). As a result, the engine man­age­ment sys­tem has full sov­er­eign­ty over the air duct and can now opti­mal­ly align all para­me­ters to reduce fuel con­sump­tion and emis­sions. The very com­pact con­trol sys­tem, which inte­grates e‑gas and engine man­age­ment in a sin­gle unit, also makes it pos­si­ble to dis­play dif­fer­ent dri­ving modes such as “Eco” or “Sport”.

In the high-end sec­tor, Vitesco Tech­nolo­gies has set an indus­try bench­mark with its M4C (for one- or two-cylin­der engines) and M4D (up to four-cylin­der engines) engine con­trol units, which offer a wide range of func­tions in a min­i­mum of space. In Milan, the com­pa­ny is now pre­sent­ing fur­ther devel­op­ments for this seg­ment. For exam­ple, the Smart Trans­mis­sion Actu­a­tor can also be used to auto­mate man­u­al trans­mis­sions on motor­cy­cles. Anoth­er new devel­op­ment is an elec­tron­i­cal­ly con­trolled twin throt­tle body (Twin Par­al­lel). This e‑gas sys­tem uses just one dri­ve unit to move both throt­tle bod­ies and its extreme­ly com­pact design makes it par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing for twin engines. High per­for­mance in a small space is also the hall­mark of the METALIT® cat­a­lyst sup­ports (LS Design / PE Design) shown at the EICMA, which ensure effec­tive exhaust gas aftertreat­ment thanks to their flow-opti­mized designs.