At the IAA Mobility 2025, ZF is showing how cars will drive tomorrow: electrically, connected, safe. The Group is already supplying production-ready drives as well as by-wire systems and software for the chassis, and is thus shaping the software-defined electric vehicle of the future. ZF is also setting standards in e-mobility: the SELECT platform combines highly integrated electric drives, power electronics and software. TherMaS controls the temperature – efficiently and precisely tailored to the energy requirements of modern electric vehicles.
Software-defined vehicles, automated driving and e-mobility: these global megatrends are leading to an increase in the importance of ZF technology. “At ZF, innovations were and are the basis for a successful future. We have consistently aligned our product range with the future of passenger car mobility and today we see ourselves ideally positioned for stable trends such as the software-defined vehicle and the electrification of the driveline,” explained ZF CEO Dr. Holger Klein at the IAA Mobility 2025.
Chassis innovations become market successes
The attractiveness of the ZF product range is particularly evident in the passenger car chassis. Here, ZF meets the global demand for new products and driving functions with intelligent actuators as well as system and software expertise while winning new customer orders around the world with its innovations. ZF is the leading supplier of steer-by-wire and brake-by-wire solutions with series orders from Chinese, European and North American car manufacturers. “Our customers include established, globally active automotive manufacturers as well as comparatively young and dynamic companies from the Far East and start-ups. They all rely on our expertise as a development partner and supplier of solutions suitable for series production,” said Holger Klein.
With the “Chassis 2.0” concept, ZF is pursuing a holistic approach for the next generation of intelligent chassis systems. In addition to the aforementioned by-wire solutions, this also includes other networkable actuators, such as the AKC rear axle steering system, active and semi-active damping systems and electronic roll stabilization. These components can be used specifically at overall vehicle and system level to optimize driving behavior or implement advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving functions. ZF’s own cubiX software plays a key role here by intelligently networking all actuators, regardless of brand, so that vehicle manufacturers can benefit from ZF’s comprehensive system expertise even without mechanical components.
Modular drive meets efficient heat management
In the market for electrified drives, ZF is positioning itself in the face of very strong technical differentiation with a flexible platform approach that enables a wide range of drive configurations. This is the key to achieving the shorter development times, faster innovation cycles, better integration and optimized costs expected by customers.
The technical basis is the SELECT e-drive platform presented at the IAA. It enables highly integrated system solutions with a wide range of variants and includes the necessary components such as electric motors, inverters, converters, reduction gears and software. These also cover hybrid solutions such as the concept of the new 8-speed automatic transmission 8HP evo and the range extender presented for the first time at the IAA.
In order to improve the efficiency of electric drives and thus increase the acceptance of e-mobility, ZF is pursuing a holistic innovation approach. One of these is TherMaS, a thermal management system that ZF has developed to market maturity specifically for all-electric vehicles. The use of propane as a refrigerant results in significantly better thermal performance at high and low temperatures, as well as a smaller and lighter system design. In tests, the optimized thermal management and more efficient use of waste heat from the drivetrain increased the electric range in demanding winter operation by up to 10 percent and even up to 30 percent under extreme conditions.
Vehicle health monitoring: digital supplement to physical products
ZF also uses its software expertise for new products. The company can permanently monitor and document the technical condition of important systems in the chassis or driveline using characteristic data and use this as a basis for making forecasts about functionality. ZF is now combining this into a range of corresponding monitoring services. These applications provide timely information about relevant effects, such as expected failures, and give recommendations for repairs or increase efficiency or performance.
In order to realize such digital services based on the field data of its own systems, ZF relies on cooperation with manufacturers. Together with ZF, they can put together a versatile package of functions that is highly attractive for end customers, especially rental and company car fleets as well as shared mobility services.
ZF solutions can also be further optimized with the help of artificial intelligence. One example: ZF precisely measures the temperature deep inside the electric motor, where it is too hot or too tight. This works entirely without additional hardware – only through AI. The AI-based TempAI solution takes temperature management in electric drives to a new level. By using an adaptive temperature model, TempAI improves the forecasting accuracy by over 15 percent, and thus enables significantly more precise thermal utilization of the electric machine.
ZF ProAI – the scalable central computer
Assistance systems are on the rise. In many market regions – including the EU – emergency braking and lane departure warning systems as well as intelligent cruise control are mandatory for new vehicles. In order to efficiently implement these assistance systems and the necessary networking of vehicle functions, current vehicle architectures rely on domain and zone controllers or central computers. On the one hand, these central control units replace the flood of decentralized, hardware-bound control units, but they also require more and more computing power. ZF offers the ProAI family as a central computer that is suitable for all vehicle platforms, software applications and E/E architectures.
Within this family, ZF now also offers more cost-effective computing units for production models. Thanks to the scalability and modularity of ProAI, this is a logical step toward a clearly structured product range. ProAI can be configured individually and in line with requirements for all vehicle classes, types and architectures – from cost-effective entry-level models for pure front camera systems or pure parking assistance systems to powerful comfort configurations for ADAS and chassis solutions of levels 2+ and 3 in the premium segment to all-in-one supercomputers that can control fully autonomous applications. This means that “ProAI” at ZF stands for all computing solutions in the automotive sector.
In parallel, ZF offers its ADAS and parking functions as independent software-as-a-product. More than 30 functions from the areas of safety, comfort and parking can be selected and integrated modularly and independently of the hardware. Vehicle manufacturers benefit from high flexibility, scalability and shorter development times.
ZF LIFETEC: Pioneer in passive safety solutions
At IAA Mobility 2025, ZF LIFETEC will be presenting, among other things, the temperature-controlled Heat Belt 2.0 (seat belt) and a retractable steering wheel concept that reflects the trend towards personalized vehicle interiors.
The Heat Belt 2.0 uses integrated heating wires and an adaptive algorithm to provide warmth close to the body. Its low energy consumption significantly increases efficiency and allows the heating output of the air conditioning system to be reduced by up to 1000 W. This enables smaller air conditioning systems and up to six percent greater range in conjunction with conventional panel heaters in the vehicle.
According to current developments, the car is becoming increasingly important as an “extended” living space, especially in Asia. With its new steering wheel concept, ZF LIFETEC is contributing to greater freedom and comfort. The steering wheel can be folded forward and retracted into the dashboard within a few seconds using an electric drive. This creates space for flexible interior concepts (“Interior of the Future”) and, among other things, more freedom of movement when parked or in (partially) automated driving mode.
SOURCE: ZF
