Freudenberg celebrates auto history with electric car

ERJ staff report (LMH)

Weinheim. Germany - To celebrate Bertha Benz's drive from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back in 1988 in her husband Carl's first petrol-driven car, the German region celebrated automobile history with a two-day focus on vehicles with alternative drive systems - electric, hybrid and fuel cell vehicles.

Freudenberg associates took part in the 10-11 Sept event with their own electric car and fuel cell vehicle. Rüdiger Finke, head of the battery separator unit at Freudenberg Nonwovens, and Dr. Silke Wagener, managing director of Freudenberg Fuel Cell Components Technology, drove the original Memorial Route from Mannheim to Pforzheim.

Over many years of cooperation with customers, Freudenberg said in a 12 Sept news release that it has been developing separators, seals, filter systems and flexible printed circuits for applications in electric vehicles.

Since 1999, developers have been working on seals and gas diffusion layers as well as filters and humidifiers that clean and condition fuel cell intake air, according to the statement.

"Electro-mobility is a key market of the future that will bring many changes. The automotive industry and its suppliers are working flat out on solutions," Wagener and Finke commented.

Freudenberg, which develops seals and vibration control technology to the automotive market, said its portfolio of key components is an integral part of millions of vehicles. And the company asked if Carl Benz would have guessed Freudenberg - a major leather producer at the time of the invention - would, 125 years later, be supplying some 300 different products to advance his own invention?

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Press release from Freudenberg