Bosch Rexroth to acquire Elmo Motion Control

Above: Thomas Fechner of Bosch Rexroth (right) and Haim Monhait, founder and owner of Elmo Motion Control

Elmo Motion Control and Bosch Rexroth (owned by Bosch Group) have signed a merger agreement in which Bosch Rexroth acquires Elmo’s entire activities, assets and staff. The purchase price was not disclosed, but the Israeli newspaper Calcalist mentioned a tag price of $700 million for the deal. The transaction is subject to antitrust approvals. Elmo Motion Control is based on Petach-Tikva, near Tel Aviv. It develops and produces electrical high-end servo drives and motion controls for industrial automation.

Elmo is planned to remain as an Israel entity, with local management and retaining the current staff of 330 employees. Bosch said its intentions are to enhance Elmo’s capabilities of developing and manufacturing the most advanced motion and servo control products. “There is continuously growing demand for smart automation and Industry 4.0 solutions,” said Thomas Fechner, Head of the Bosch Rexroth Automation and Electrification Solutions Business Unit. “We are strengthening our portfolio both organically and through acquisitions.”

““Factory automation is a clear focus topic at Bosch Rexroth. Elmo’s technology enables us to integrate drives the size of a smartphone into robots or autonomous transport vehicles, for example,” says Fechner. “Elmo technologies thus open up new fields of application that pose special technological challenges, such as autonomous transport vehicles, service robotics, or the decentralized arrangement of drives in machines.”

Elmo Motion Control specializes in sophisticated, yet compact servo drives and motion control for advanced machines in the segments semiconductor, electronic manufacturing, electrical industry, robotics, medical, automated guided vehicles (AGV), automatic warehousing, and the packaging and food industry. Elmo was founded in 1988 by the CEO and owner Haim Monhait. In addition to the main location in Israel, the company maintains an assembly site in Poland.

Bosch to manufacture IRP’s powertrain components for E-Vehicles

IRP System Company from Nes-Ziona, Israel, announced it has signed a strategic agreement with Bosch Company for serial manufacturing of IRP’s personal mobility electric motor controllers. Along the product it develops and manufactures Bosch offer industrialization and production services for other companies in the automotive world. The new cooperation will focus on manufacturing controllers for Electric personal mobility vehicles (scooters, motorcycles, 3-wheelers and quadricycles), IRP’s largest market segment as of today. Some of the company’s solutions are already integrated in several commercial models, and in order to meet growing demands it extends its production capabilities through the agreement with Bosch.  

IRP has developed the TrueDrive technology, an array of engines and controllers running by patented algorithm, which improve electric engines efficiency, reduce costs and enlarge the vehicle’s driving range. Dan Shoshani, VP Marketing & Product Management at IRP Systems, explains to Techtime: “The main challenge in the Electric Vehicle controllers’ world is to craft a controller that offers high performance with maximum safety, together with competitive price. Our cutting edge technology meets the highest standards of the automotive industry. We put a lot of attention in the driver’s experience and in providing outstanding ‘in-control’ driving feeling for its e-vehicle. We manage to achieve this through our unique algorithmics which is built-in the controller”.

IRP Systems was co-founded by CEO Moran Price and CTO Paul Price. At start, they aimed their technology for the aviation’s world applications, but in later years the company has changed focus and migrate its technology for the automotive world. Today it develops powertrain solutions for scooters, motorcycles, 3-wheelers and quadricycles with power up to 150kw and for passenger’s cars. The solution is composed of three major components: controllers, engines and battery management system.

A successful joint experiment with Renault

In the last year, IRP Systems took part at Renault-Nissan innovation lab in Tel-Aviv. Within this experiment, the company’s technology was tested in a Renault’s light vehicle. As a proof of concept, four electric engines and IRP’s control array have been installed in a Renault Twizy car. Company has reported that the size of the four new engines is only one third of the original engines’ size, and they managed to double driving range between charging with higher the ratio of speed thanks to the engines’ higher torque (power).

Bosch Company announced that the production will be performed in the frame of its DfX (Design for eXcellence) service. This service integrates the production, tech and automation constraints in the engineering design – early at the planning stages. The industrialization and manufacturing of IRP’s products will be led by Bosch Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) business unit headquarters in Mondeville, France, together with Bosch Technology local team in Israel.