The move, says Knorr-Bremse, will open up new markets for the business, notably for autonomous vehicles.
“The product synergies between our tradition core competence in braking and the additional steering expertise offered by tedrive provide an ideal basis for the next stage of the complex control processes required for driver assist systems and automated driving,” says Dr Peter Laier (pictured), member of the executive board of Knorr-Bremse responsible for the commercial vehicle systems division.
“It means that, going forward, we will be able to actively influence both longitudinal and lateral vehicle dynamics – in order to keep the truck in lane automatically, for example, or steer it past a hazard. This is where tedrive’s iHSA (intelligent Hydraulic Steering Assist) technology plays a decisive part – a hydraulic steering system with electronic actuation, specially developed to meet the demands of automated driving in commercial vehicles.”
Knorr-Bremse is forming a new business unit, the Center of Competence (CoC) Steering, part of its commercial vehicle division. The new unit will be managed by tedrive Steering’s general manager Thomas Brüse.
The acquisition also sees Knorr-Bremse taking over 320 employees who work at tedrive’s two production plants in Wülfrath, Germany, and at other production, sales and technical facilities in Turkey, Russia and the US.