After two years in stealth mode, Santa Clara-based SF Motors recently announced details of two upcoming EVs, the SF5 and the SF7. The SF5 will be available for pre-order by the end of 2018 and is scheduled to hit the road in 2019. The company plans to begin vehicle production this year at its facilities in the US and China, aiming for a total capacity of 200,000 units per year.
SF Motors is a strong believer in building critical components in-house. It has partnered with suppliers including Dürr, Siemens, AFT, Bosch, Infineon, Samsung SDI and LGC to create a proprietary powertrain that includes custom motors, gearboxes, and electronic controllers. The company has even developed its own proprietary battery cells and a patented liquid-cooled battery pack.
SF has devised a flexible motor system that allows it to design vehicles using one, two, three, or four motors. At the top end, its powerful four-motor system will deliver over 1,000 hp, launching its vehicles from 0 to 60 in under 3 seconds. The company’s motors, motor controllers, and gearboxes are integral to this performance, with peak power ranging from 100 to 400 kW. SF’s electronic controllers, all developed in-house, enable instantaneous all-wheel-drive torque vectoring.
In 2016, the company acquired a factory near South Bend, Indiana (poetic justice department: the former AM General plant used to build Hummers), and retooled it for EV production. The company is investing heavily in automation, and says it has body shops and process quality control centers that are 100 percent automated.
“We consider our US plant in Indiana and our China facility in Chongqing to be among the most automated plants in the world, with partners that are the world’s foremost leaders in manufacturing,” said Chief Production Officer Jim Finn.
“My team and I come from automotive backgrounds rich in tradition, and have designed and built cars for some of the most exclusive high-end US and European automakers,” said Chief Engineer Thomas Fritz. “We believe what we’re designing today honors those roots, while enabling us to bring forward a new vision of mobility.”
“Our mission is to transform human mobility – and perhaps our planet – through intelligent EVs,” said founder and CEO John Zhang. “To do this, we can’t follow the same path as every other EV company. We aim to be the company that shares integrated technology solutions and provides the manufacturing expertise to make more EVs a reality. We believe everyone wins with the wider adoption of EV technology.”