Tata Elxsi wins contract from German car parts supplier Schaeffler, sets up tech hub in Pune

Product design and technology services provider Tata Elxsi on Thursday said that it has been selected as the global engineering services partner by German automotive parts maker and supplier Schaeffler Technologies.

As part of the engagement with the Herzogenaurach, Germany based company, it also unveiled a technology centre in Pune, according to a statement.

The new Global Engineering Center (GEC) is part of a strategic multi-year engineering services engagement for Schaeffler’s mobility solutions, the statement added.

Schaeffler is a global supplier to the automotive and industrial sectors. Its portfolio includes components and systems for engine, transmission, and chassis applications as well as rolling and plain bearing solutions for a large number of industrial applications.  It is also engaged in the field of digitalization of production.

With 84,200 employees working across 170 locations in 50 countries, the Schaeffler group of companies generated sales of about €14.4 billion in 2019. 

"They (Tata Elxsi) will help us in collaboration with our centres in India and Germany to build the required talent bases for the increasing footprint of mechatronics products of Schaeffler," Lars Noetzig, vice president of central mechatronics at Schaeffler said.

The GEC, the statement said, will focus on mechatronics, digital and embedded technologies, to drive digital transformation for Schaeffler’s mechatronics business.

"This further consolidates our automotive position in Europe and fortifies the focused investments that we have pursued over these years as a design led engineering solutions provider,” Nitin Pai, chief marketing and strategy officer at Tata Elxsi said.

Bengaluru-based Tata Elxsi works with original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and suppliers in the automotive and transportation industries for research and development (R&D), design and product engineering services from architecture to launch.

Its domain experience includes connected infotainment, autonomous driving, telematics, powertrain, body and chassis electronics, along with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), analytics, cloud and Internet-of-Things (IoT).

In February, it partnered with Tata Motors to develop the latter’s existing unified connected vehicle platform.

In January, it unveiled RoboTaxi, an in-house autonomous AI-based taxi, in partnership with California-based advanced artificial vision hardware provider AEye.