FEV has started operations of its new Benchmark Center (BMC) in Aachen, Germany. The engineering service provider in the fields of mobility, software and energy now offers its customers an extended range of services in the BMC, ranging from comprehensive analyses of entire vehicles to targeted support at the component or technology level.

"The demand for benchmarking analyses has been growing not only since the increasing share of new battery-electric models and corresponding manufacturers worldwide," said Christian Speuser, director benchmarking at FEV. "With the latest expansions, we are doing justice to this development and offering our customers a decisive development advantage with our analysis results."

Source: FEV

In Aachen, the new facility with an extended range of services is located on an area of 1,250 m² directly at the headquarters, in the immediate vicinity of the FEV engineering area. In addition to valuable expertise, the BMC uses the latest technology. For example, modern material analysis and X-ray equipment as well as 3D scanners are used for documentation and analysis.

The facility has an exhibition area of 400 m² where visitors can experience vehicles and their hardware live and immediately understand the differences and advantages of individual components or systems. A further 650 m² will be used for documentation and workshop rooms, a photo studio as well as offices and meeting rooms. In the Innovation Lab, workshops and ideation projects are realized on 200 m². In the immediate vicinity of the benchmarking hardware, there are rooms designed for creativity and maximum output of the working groups in a pleasant atmosphere.

All data collected during the analyses so far and in the future will be integrated into the new cloud-based FEV benchmarking database "carat". "This makes it even easier for our customers to make the best use of the results for their individual purposes," said Speuser. In the future, customers will be able to analyze and compare data at all levels of the vehicle via the individually adaptable database.

With the new BMC, FEV has a global network with a total of four benchmark centers. In addition to Aachen, these are located in the U.S., India and China.

Currently, the Audi SQ6 e-tron and Tesla's Cybertruck are being analyzed by the benchmark experts at FEV.