Saietta announces more integrated technology focus

Electric powertrain company Saietta Group updated the market on developments with its core ‘axial flux technology’ (AXT) on Wednesday, which is primarily targeted at the light-duty automotive and ‘e-drive’ sector.

The AIM-traded firm said following the addition of the electric motor manufacturing facility in Sunderland earlier in the year, it continued to make progress towards starting the scaled-up production of AFT motors and other products.

In response to market demand, it said a key recent development in its business goal had been a move to prioritise the provision of fully-integrated e-drive systems.

“By combining the Saietta AFT motor with integrated power electronics, a gearbox and a bespoke axle configuration, the company intends to capture vertically-integrated margins as opposed to focusing on standalone motor sales,” the board explained in its statement.

“This is expected to materially enhance Saietta's long term revenue and margin prospects.”

Saietta noted that it had previously aspired to offer such solutions, but said its ability to deliver integrated e-drive systems had been accelerated by a number of factors.

The first was the addition, via the acquisition of e-Traction in November, of automotive power electronics intellectual property, a proprietary software platform, powertrain control systems, an online diagnostics suite and the corresponding manufacturing capabilities.

“This has enabled Saietta to progress the development of its in-house integrated inverter for AFT products.

“This additional capability means that inverter and powertrain controls may be supplied to end customers fully integrated with AFT motors.”

The second factor was the accelerated commercial success of Saietta's marine products subsidiary ‘Propel’, which had developed a fully-integrated marine e-drive system and generated around €1.5m of revenue in its first year of operations.

“This has proven the ability of the group to leverage AFT technology into commercially successful vertically integrated e-drivetrain systems and get them to market within months.”

The board said the final factor was the initial contract wins for prototype integrated AFT140-based e-drive systems from four light-duty vehicle manufacturers, being the US-based Ayro, the UK-based Electric Assisted Vehicles, an established OEM of light-duty vehicles in India, and a new European vehicle platform developer.

Additionally, the company said it was working on proof-of-concept e-drive system designs for two further potential high volume light-duty commercial vehicle customers based in India.

“Although at prototype stage, and with further milestones to be met, the directors believe that collectively these activities have the potential to develop into volumes in excess of 87,000 integrated AFT140 e-drive systems per annum,” the board said.

As a result of those commercial developments, Saietta said it would be prioritising the mass production of the AFT140 over other products in the AFT portfolio.

Since the Sunderland factory acquisition, the company said it had received further enquiries of interest from a range of European vehicle OEMs in different market segments as well.

“We are delighted that we are now in a position to offer customers fully integrated AFT e-drive system solutions,” said chief executive officer Vic Kist.

“The acquisition of e-Traction has enabled us to reach this point sooner than expected and customer engagement has convinced us that this is the best commercial opportunity for delivering our AFT technology to market.

“Owning the power electronics and software development capabilities should allow us to help our customers to get their vehicle platforms to market faster.”

Kist said the company believed such an approach would enable Saietta to continue to grow into “one of the world's leading” light-duty and heavy-duty e-drive businesses, and be a “showcase of UK and European engineering and production excellence” at the current stage in the “transformation” of the global automotive industry.

“We are also delighted that we can now manufacture these innovative products at our world-class automotive electric motor manufacturing facility in Sunderland - which has historically delivered over 25 million electric motors for automotive OEMs.”

At 1531 BST, shares in Saietta Group were up 7.14% at 150p.

Reporting by Josh White at Sharecast.com.