Electric motor company sets up shop in Calgary under former GE head's leadership

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A former CEO at General Electric is banking that Calgary is the right place to scale up an innovative technology company that aims to improve the performance and efficiency of electric motors

Author of the article:
Amanda Stephenson • Calgary Herald
Publishing date:
Sep 07, 2020 • Last Updated 1 day ago

CAL0082620-gya-1-copy.jpg
Sue Ozdemir, CEO of Exro Technologies Inc., stands with electric motor bikes in the company's Calgary facility on Wednesday, August 26, 2020. Exro Technologies has designed technology to improve the performance, efficiency, and longevity of batteries, electric motors and generators.PHOTO BY GAVIN YOUNG/POSTMEDIA

A former CEO at General Electric is banking that Calgary is the right place to scale up an innovative technology company that aims to improve the performance and efficiency of electric motors.

Sue Ozdemir was living in Houston and heading GE’s industrial motors division when she was approached last year by Exro Technologies Inc., a Vancouver-based startup that was looking for a new CEO. Intrigued by Exro’s unique technology, Ozdemir agreed to take the job — and then made the decision to relocate herself as well as Exro’s headquarters to Calgary.

“It was a scary move for me, it really was,” said Ozdemir. “I was (at GE) in what would have been my dream career. I wasn’t looking to leave, honestly.”

But Ozdemir — who could fix a motor by the age of 15, thanks to her parents who owned an industrial electric motor repair shop in Milton, Ont. — couldn’t resist the challenge posed by Exro. The publicly traded company may be small (with just 20 employees) but Ozdemir believes its patented “Coil Driver” technology has the potential to change the electric vehicle industry by providing electric motors with both torque and speed through the same application.

This matters because while electric cars are improving every year, manufacturers are still struggling to design larger vehicles — such as transit buses or other utility-scale vehicles — that have the power and speed to compete with their fossil fuel-powered competitors.

“When you think about a garbage truck, for example, that cost of ownership — the ability to complete a route with so many pickups in a day — is critical to the transition to electric,” Ozdemir said. “It would be a huge change for the industry to be able to reach the performance that makes it cost-competitive by utilizing technology in the power electronics.”

Ozdemir was also keen on the idea of moving back to Calgary, a place she had lived more than a decade ago when she worked for electric motor importer WEG Canada. She believed the city would be a good fit for Exro and the innovation centre the company plans to open here before the end of the year.

“I didn’t look at Calgary as a declining economy, with a suffering oil and gas industry, I looked at it as a pool of really talented engineers that we can utilize in our resources and that would support our technology,” Ozdemir said. “And as a city that wants new companies to come here and encouraged us to come here.”

Exro has hired several employees locally since making the move to Calgary, as well as relocating people from its B.C. offices. The company is now in the commercialization stage, and has already signed seven different deals designed to show the scaleability of Exro’s product line — from electric boats to electric cars to electric snowmobiles.

Ozdemir said she believes Calgary’s strength as an oil and gas sector makes it ideal for clean tech companies such as Exro.

“Myself and all of our team are big advocates for the complete energy sector. We believe there’s a balance between all of it, and it’s not an either-or scenario,” she said.

But Ozdemir also makes no bones out of the fact that she thinks electrification of North America’s vehicle fleet is coming faster than many may think.

“I honestly believe we’re going to see things, even as early as next year, transitioning faster than we think. And the current COVID situation has helped us to accelerate that, as people realize we can do things in a different way than we thought and still accomplish the same result,” she said.

However, Ozdemir added she believes Alberta should embrace, not fear, the transition.

“The resources we get out of Alberta, we’re going to need those for many, many years to come,” she said. “And I think finding that balance is really the key to the right model of transition to electrification. I definitely think that Calgary has the ability to offer that.”

Calgary Economic Development president and CEO Mary Moran said she is “thrilled” Exro has chosen Calgary for its headquarters, adding she believes that to maintain its position as a global energy centre, this city must not only optimize its existing oil and gas industry but also support the transition to other energy sources.

“With respect to electric vehicles, we’ve been pursuing many companies working in this space — both big and small — for quite some time,” Moran said. “Exro is a fast-scaling company and they’re really unique in what they do, so it’s going to be interesting to watch.”


Source: Calgary Herald
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Crissa

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Exro is the company with the multiple-windings in a single motor, giving it different performance profiles.

That lets you have a high-toque motor and a high-speed motor in the same package (which is what Tesla is getting with their multiple motors in a single car).

They've partnered with Zero motorcycles to produce a new motor, There are rumors that they also have a spdesign to use their series-parallel relays in battery tech, which would be exciting: Allowing battery packs to charge at a different voltage than they're used at, or to shift as cells lose balance on the fly.

Pretty cool stuff.

-Crissa
 
 




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