“If the car gets heavier, as you’re driving along, you need to have much tougher damping control to keep the car from getting out of control. Manufacturers are forced to then put much stiffer dampers on the car,” Ellaby said.
“On top of that, electric cars often have low-energy tires, which are pumped up to the maximum to make the car go the extra kilometer in range,” he added. “The whole combination is making a car really difficult to drive well.”
The iX3 and ID4 will feature flexibility in tuning and a wider tuning range, Ellaby said. The new iteration of the system was also made quieter.
“We can choose whether the valve builds up pressure faster or more progressively, and that valve is more sophisticated than the previous generation,” he added.
Tenneco also enhanced its passive valves.
“The passive valve is doing a lot of the basic ride of the car,” Ellaby said. “If you’re driving in a straight line on a smooth road, the passive valve is almost everything that you feel in the damper.”
To handle the additional loads from EV batteries, the damper has been expanded — which also requires lighter-weight materials.
“Higher weight means higher damping forces, even if you only need them briefly. And higher damping forces create higher pressures inside the damper,” Ellaby said. “You either have to make the damper bigger, which reduces the overall pressure, or you have to make the damper thicker, which means putting more steel in.”
Tenneco’s dampers are primarily manufactured at its plant in Ermua, Spain. The number of CVSAe configurations needed to supply a variety of makes and models has required Tenneco to adopt flexible manufacturing and smart designs.
