Cambridge Vacuum Engineering (CVE) and Ford have successfully completed the Innovate UK–funded EB-eDrive project, demonstrating that electron beam welding (EBW) can improve the manufacture of electric motor stators and strengthen the repeatability of production processes.
The findings support wider industrial adoption of the technology and hold promise for advancing EV manufacturing in the UK and North America.
As part of Innovate UK’s Driving the Electric Revolution Challenge, the project showed that electron beam welding significantly enhances stator hairpin joining, offering higher performance and more consistent results than conventional methods.
These improvements address a critical challenge for electric vehicle production: building motor stators with precision to maximize efficiency, durability, and cost competitiveness.
Technical results
Using CVE’s proprietary technology, the partners demonstrated that electron beam welding is a reliable joining method for copper hairpin stators and that it:
- Does not require pre-processing of hairpins such as trimming, since EBW is unaffected by reflectivity issues that impact infrared lasers.
- Produces welds with an average tensile strength six times above the minimum requirement.
- Enables easy outgassing through vacuum processing, resulting in pore-free welds in oxygen-free copper.
While the project was funded in the UK, its findings are highly relevant to North American EV production, where automakers are scaling domestic battery and motor manufacturing to meet growing demand and align with policy incentives. Electron beam welding could help manufacturers on both sides of the Atlantic deliver more cost-effective, efficient, and sustainable motors at volume.
Filed Under: Electric Motor