SAE WCX World Congress Experience 2025

E-mobility is revolutionizing the automotive industry by improving energy-efficiency, lowering CO₂ and non-exhaust emissions, innovating driving and propulsion technologies, redefining the hardware-software-ratio in the vehicle development, facilitating new business models, and transforming the market circumstances for electric vehicles (EVs) in passenger mobility and freight transportation.

Ongoing R&D action is leading to an uptake of affordable and more energy-efficient EVs for the public at large through the development of innovative and user-centric solutions, optimized system concepts and components sizing, and increased passenger safety. Moreover, technological EV optimizations and investigations on thermal and energy management systems as well as the modularization of multiple EV functionalities result in driving range maximization, driving comfort improvement, and greater user-centricity.

This paper presents the latest advancements of multiple EU-funded research projects under the Horizon Europe framework and showcases their complementarities to address the European priorities as identified in the 2Zero SRIA, namely EFFEREST, MINDED, and SmartCorners. EFFEREST targets energy efficiency, comfort, safety, and affordability of EVs through considering knowledge from real-fleet behavior and personalization of data. MINDED aims to maximize EV’s driving range by improving the thermal- and energy management of an electric minibus to reduce energy consumption while optimizing thermal comfort, and therefore directly impacting the user acceptance. SmartCorners provides scalable, flexible, and user-centric smart corner systems including e-axles and e-corners based on in-wheel powertrains. SmartCorners aims at introducing smart corner systems based on in-wheel powertrains as underlaying technology toward software-defined vehicles, enabling rightsizing, holistic optimization, innovative fault mitigation and actuator allocation strategies as well as more efficient, adaptive, predictive, and personalized system operation.

Read the full paper HERE.

Today, we are introducing you to our SmartCorners demonstration project; developed in collaboration with FH Joanneum Automotive Engineering Masters program.​

This is an excellent opportunity for ambitious engineering students to explore and integrate innovative concepts into the demonstrator, including the key features:

• Up to 90° Steering Angle ​
• Brake-by-Wire ​
• Active Camber  ​
• 3D Printing  ​

During our General Assembly, the initial concept has been presented to the project consortium, and we are looking forward to the quality-gate meeting, happening soon. ​

SmartCorners is an innovative vehicle technology that is designed to advance electric vehicles (EVs) by integrating multiple critical functions such as propulsion, braking, suspension, and steering, into compact, modular systems called “smart corners.” These systems use new advancements like in-wheel motors, AI-driven controls, and predictive maintenance to enhance vehicle efficiency, safety, and user experience.

Through this survey, we aim to gather valuable insights from stakeholders to better understand the challenges, opportunities, and expectations for implementing advanced vehicle technologies like SmartCorners. Your input will help shaping the future of mobility. The survey will only take 5 minutes of your time, is completely anonymous and will solely be used for the purpose of SmartCorners Stakeholder opinion collection. You can access the survey HERE.

We are happy to share with you our SmartCorners project video – learn the essence about the project in 02:09 minutes. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us so we can guide you further in the world of SmartCorners and our advancements.

The next edition of the E-VOLVE Cluster is out! In this edition, you can find the mapping towards 2Zero of all projects including of course SmartCorners, update from EM-TECH, RHODaS and SCAPE and review of activities of the cluster. And we can share with you, the “save the date” for the next E-VOLVE cluster webinar: it will be November 22nd. Have a read on the full edition of the Newsletter HERE and stay tuned for more updates coming.