Event Report CTI SYMPOSIUM USA 2025

Software Increasingly Defines the Powertrain

Ten years ago, transmissions were still seen as the ‘managers of the drive system’. Since then, the focus has shifted entirely. At the CTI Symposium Novi 2025, key topics included the diversity of electrified drive systems, new solutions such as Range-Extended Electric Vehicles, current challenges in electronics and battery development – and the Software-Defined Vehicle, which is also redefining drive development.

Sometimes, it can seem as though the Chinese automotive industry is inexorably outpacing Europe and North America. But in his introductory speech in Novi, CTI-USA Chairman Patrick Lindemann was far more upbeat. He invited his audience to see the bigger picture: Yes, over 30 million cars were sold in China in 2024, against just over 10 million in Europe and around 18 million in the USA (15 million of which were non-imports). But in Europe, the average car price was around $56,000, compared to $23,400 in China. At roughly $49,000, American vehicles were cheaper than in Europe – but in terms of total market sales, the USA led the field with $882 million, while China managed just $730 million, only slightly more than Europe. The bottom line: The US market is still the biggest. So as Lindemann put it: „Let’s discuss at this symposium, what the best drive technology is for the US market.” This much is clear: drive systems diversity will be around for a while, there is a new kid in town called REEV, and the Software-Defined Vehicle has already arrived. The focus of value creation is shifting – and that means excellent opportunities for the US industry.

Electrification: slow, but steady growth

Since these ‘best drive technologies’ will increasingly be electrified in North America, too, a review of the „Electric Vehicle Ecosystem” in the USA is a good place to start. In his presentation „US EV Industry Update”, Brent Gruber of J.D. Power said there was continuous growth in BEVs and HEVs, but PHEVs were still not really gaining traction. In 2025, HEVs accounted for 13.2% of all new registrations; BEVs achieved 9.5%, and PHEVs just 2.2%. Over the past three years, the number of BEV models in the market had risen from 27 to 62, most of them in the premium segment. Gruber asked why the EV market wasn’t growing faster. One reason, he said, was political uncertainty concerning tax incentives. But unless registrations grew faster, the US would miss its emissions targets. Charging infrastructures were another issue. Satisfaction levels were actually dropping here: 19 percent of EV drivers reported non-functioning charging stations, and the number of EVs was growing twice as fast as the number of charging stations. On the other hand, more than 4 in 5 people charged at home, while the average EV user drove less than 50 miles a day. Nevertheless, J.D. Power expects EVs to grow their market share from 2026 onwards, and predicts roughly 26% by 2030.

Range Extenders for the USA too?

REEVs (electric range extended vehicles) are very successful in China, alongside BEVs. Given the sheer size of the USA, could they make sense there too? At the symposium, the acronyms REEV and EREV were both used, and are interchangeable. Joe Tolkacz presented the Stellantis Ramcharger, calling it the „right vehicle at the right time” for the US market. The RAM 1500 Ramcharger is the first light truck in an REEV format, and the performance data are impressive. The independent electric drives on the front and rear axles deliver 250 and 248 kW respectively, while the V8 combustion engine supplies up to 202 kW to a generator with 202 kW peak and 130 kW continuous power. The battery capacity is 91.8 kWh, and Stellantis puts the total range at 690 miles. Being a light truck, the Ramcharger comes with an automatic transmission, plus a range of extra modes such as snow, trailer or off-road. Of particular interest to US customers is its V2X (Vehicle to X) compatibility, which means the Ramcharger can supply power to tools, other vehicles, and also to homes. This generator function is the main differentiator between the Ramcharger and a normal BEV. It can power a home for 11 to 22 days on a single tank of fuel, or even a whole neighborhood if refueling is an option – in theory, for as long as necessary.

At the symposium, opinions differed as to whether REEVs will really have a future or not. During the OEM panel discussion, Micky Bly, Stellantis, said a vehicle like the Ramcharger made sense because it could fully meet all consumers’ everyday needs. Stellantis currently offers two systems – the REEV for large body frame applications, and P2 PHEV solutions for models like the Jeep – and intends to pursue both options. Norman Peralta, GM, said PHEVs made sense for large cars and trucks since customers do not want to buy a BEV with today’s battery technology. Like his colleagues at Stellantis and GM, Thomas McCarthy said Ford wanted to give consumers a choice and would therefore keep supporting drivetrain diversity. Dante Boutell, Toyota, foresees a gradual shift from PHEV to REEV, but said BEV would ultimately prevail, especially if ranges continue to grow. During the Q&A session after his presentation, J.D. Power expert Brent Gruber made it quite clear that, in his opinion, REEVs, like PHEVs, were neither fish nor fowl – and were unlikely to take a sizable share of the market.

Electrification of Large and Work Trucks

The Truck Electrification Panel discussed the best drive system for large trucks. Jason Gies of Windrose thinks long-haul trucks will be fully electrified, too. He said Windrose was currently pursuing BEVs only, with ranges of up to 420 miles and a charging time of 38 minutes from 20-80% SOC. However, a high-performance charging infrastructure was „hypercritical.” By contrast, as Jerome Gregeois explained, Hyundai-Kia is pursuing three options: BEV, fuel cell, and EREV. Andreas Kammel of Traton also saw room for all options, depending on the application, but said, plug-in solutions were a niche, and BEV would also prevail in long-haul applications. Kevin Robinet of Scout said designing REEVs as a BEV architecture variant for smaller applications would make sense. „If BEV energy density quadruples, everything speaks for BEV – but when is that going to happen?” According to Ruidong Yang, BYD is also backing purely battery-electric drive systems for long-range trucks. He said REEVs made sense for some applications, but were technically more complex, and ultimately yielded less range per kilowatt.

As Chad Smith, Oshkosh, showed in his presentation „Advancing Powertrain Solutions for Work Trucks”, electrifying vocational and work trucks comes with its own set of requirements. Vocational trucks are commercial vehicles whose primary function is to „work.” Depending on the application, electrification levels vary greatly. Concrete mixers, for example, need to run continuously, so they are either HEVs, or ICE-only. Oshkosh also offers BEV garbage trucks with high recuperation levels, and a battery designed for the vehicle’s lifetime. Charging is not an issue here, he said, as operators had their own charging stations. Smith said Oshkosh also offered PHEV rescue and firefighting vehicles for airports. These had 28% better acceleration and sufficient range for normal daily use, and „German customers love them.” Military vehicles were a completely separate category; charging in an austere environment was impractical. That said, an HEV design made sense and could cut consumption by up to 30 percent, whereby the extra weight and complexity needed to be factored in. Smith finished up by mentioning several challenges in work truck electrification, including training and service for high-voltage applications, the availability of drive components, and ensuring the future availability of domestically produced batteries. Given the short production runs for work trucks, he said, the supply situation was more difficult than for large-scale manufacturers.

Battery Production as seen by a Volume Manufacturer

By contrast, Stellantis has to master large-scale production requirements on an international scale. Tim Grewe, Stellantis, talked about the challenges of „STLA Multi Energy Battery Systems & Industrialization”

in HEVs, PHEVs and BEVs. For example, Stellantis has to deal with the fact that European cars are smaller than American vehicles. Hence, the company portfolio includes three unibody platforms (small, medium, and large) with electric ranges of 300 to 500 miles, plus a body-on-frame platform for trucks with a range of up to 500 miles. The frame platform was just as suitable for ICE drives as for BEVs, FCEVs, xHEVs, and REEVs such as the Ramcharger. Grewe noted that Stellantis already offers 30 hybrid models in Europe under its Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Citroën, Peugeot, Opel, Jeep, and Lancia brands, with six more to follow in 2026. He said Stellantis tackled one major task over ten years ago, by standardizing battery production across all global locations. Using a cloth stretched across the stage, the speaker effectively demonstrated how delicate battery separators are and how critical even the slightest damage is. „You put a hole in it, and the lithium is going to find a way to cause trouble.” This applied to all batteries: hybrid batteries may have different and more frequent duty cycles, but the core requirements for production reliability were always the same. Each location needed be able to produce everything. Standardized processes were essential in order to meet customer needs quickly, globally, and promptly.

The Road to Software-Defined Vehicles

Lucid Motors is at the other end of the spectrum. It makes just two EV models – the Air and the Gravity – and follows a rigorous in-house development approach. In his lecture „Vehicle Efficiency Through Integrated Design of Drive Units and HV Battery”, Emid Diala described how Lucid developed most of its hardware and software in-house, from the battery system and electric motor to the power electronics and beyond. The company also designed its own development software. This enabled it to model and simulate all components and the overall system as early as possible. Before the first prototypes were built, developers even balanced battery properties (such as charging speed) and driving capability in the simulation. For Lucid Motors, its vehicles were the best examples of Software-Defined Vehicles (SDVs) – not just in terms of OTA software updates, but also in the high degree of hardware and software integration along the whole development chain. This would not have been possible using bought-in modules.

SDV in general is playing a growing role at CTI symposia, as illustrated by the presentation „Continuous Everything – Automotive in Transition to Becoming a Software Industry” by Florian Rohde, iProcess. Before becoming a consultant, Florian Rohde worked at Tesla on the Software-Defined Vehicle, „which wasn’t called that back then.” Up till now, he said, dealers sold and serviced cars. But today, you could retrofit features via software, and sometimes even sell them as a service. You could update the user interface, interact with customers, have a complete feedback loop, offer preventive maintenance, and avoid physical recalls. All of this required software-oriented processes and work structures. Using Tesla as his example, Rohde described how making changes to both software and software involved basing the work on schedules, as opposed to features. „If you have a software feature ready on time, it can go into the release train; if not, you have to stay where you are.” Traditional, component-based development also no longer made sense. Since the hardest aspect was integration at system level, everyone had to be in constant communication. It was vital to bring all the developers together as early as possible, and to test vehicle functions continuously and automatically throughout development. „When people are developing a new feature, allow them into the car”, the speaker explained. „Allow what is called feature branches.” In other words: develop features in an encapsulated environment, then integrate them back into the higher-level software tree.

From the developer viewpoint, Software-Defined Vehicle seems set to replace traditional component-based development rapidly – and not just in BEVs, as Florian Rohde noted. Feature-oriented development offers new possibilities, and new customer benefits. As Emid Diala put it: „An SDV doesn’t age during operation, it actually becomes more modern in terms of functionality.” Christine Thelesklaf, the Bosch representative on the Supplier Panel, added that in terms of brand differentiation, drive systems would matter less, while the way brands integrate their electronics and design their user interfaces would become more important.

Deep-dive contents and a new forum for innovative startups

The CTI Symposium Novi offered a comprehensive program of deep-dive presentations in addition to the plenary presentations and panel discussions. There were 53 in all, grouped under the following session headings: Electric and Hybrid Drives, E-Drive Components, E-Motors, Batteries, Thermal Management, Development Tools, AI & Testing, Commercial Vehicle Propulsion, Development Tools, Testing, and Lubrication.

In a new format that will be repeated at future events, seven startups introduced themselves briefly during the two days, and offered guided tours of their exhibition booths. For this new format, CTI has partnered with GAMIC, a non-profit organization with the mission to identify, mentor, and promote global startup innovations targeting the North American mobility market.

Dive Engineering Software offers a browser-based smoothed particle hydrodynamics software that enables virtual drivetrain lubrication and cooling analysis. EcoNova Tech has developed innovations using the Geneva mechanism or non-circular gears for uninterrupted shifting with EVs. eLeap-Power provides advanced power electronics solutions tailored for off-highway, light commercial, and passenger vehicle applications. Emil Motors is working on the next generation of electric motors, being entirely free of rare earth material. Limestone Engineering Services (LES) offer consultancy in areas like transmissions, ICE, BEV and specific fields like FE analysis, NVH, tribology etc. Marel Power Solutions is a power electronics company, focused on advancing electrified powertrain systems. Orbis Electric’s patented technology is a lightweight axial flux motor-generator with unrivaled power & configurability.

Software, Electronics, and Semiconductors are growing

Summing up, North America will continue to see a diverse range of drive concepts in years to come. Given the sheer distances involved, a one-size-fits-all solution seems unlikely to appear anytime soon. Will the relatively new vehicle category of REEVs gain traction in the USA too? We look forward to monitoring developments in this sector. One strong argument in their favor is their ability to serve as power generators, including in V2X applications. But as the discussion at Novi made clear, P2 PHEVs may still have their place wherever ICE hauling power has priority.

The trend towards software-defined vehicles is evident. SDV offers new service models, streamlined development processes, and tangible extra consumer benefits. How far will Software as a Service go? Will we eventually just sell functionality, not vehicles? Other areas whose growth will be matched by their coverage at future CTI Symposia include power electronics for electrified drives, where interesting advances are being made in the field of power semiconductors. What role can GaN play as an alternative to SiC, for example? Will highly efficient inverters trickle down to lower-cost applications? At the CTI Symposium Berlin (December 2 and 3, 2025, Estrel Hotel, Berlin), all this and more will be up for discussion.

4 Steps to Optimizing Sustainable Design and Manufacturing

aPriori’s four-phase sustainability maturity model integrates sustainable practices into manufacturing while balancing profitability and environmental impact

This framework guides manufacturers toward environmental stewardship using data-driven insights to make effective design, sourcing, and production choices

Designing products that balance profitability and sustainability is essential in today’s market. This requirement is driven by a growing consumer demand for greener products, stricter environmental regulations, and a collective push to achieve carbon reduction targets.

Manufacturers must integrate sustainable practices into their existing operations without compromising on efficiency or competitiveness. This raises a pivotal question: How can manufacturers align their operations to promote environmental stewardship and spur growth?

To address this critical issue, aPriori has established a sustainability maturity model as a strategic roadmap for manufacturers to assess their current capabilities and the effectiveness of their green supply chain management initiatives. By monitoring their sustainability maturity performance, manufacturers can establish clear steps to reduce their carbon footprint.

The following figure illustrates how product development teams can assess and pinpoint their position across the four stages of sustainability maturity.

Manufacturers that don’t advance their sustainability maturity to the fourth and final stage risk falling behind their competitors and being saddled with additional operational costs due to incurred carbon taxes and other regulatory policies enacted to spur the reduction of greenhouse gases (GHGs).

Learn more by downloading the aPriori Sustainability Guide at get.apriori.com/CTI-mag

Stage 1: Create Precise, Auditable CO2e baselines

Creating an accurate carbon emissions baseline is the first step in achieving a sustainable and green supply chain. This baseline empowers sustainable manufacturers to measure and quantify the carbon footprint of their existing supply chain operations, enabling them to:

• Use their current “state of sustainability” as the starting point to plan and track their progress
• Identify and focus on the areas with the highest cost and carbon reduction potential.
• Set realistic cost targets that guide and influence product teams’ supply chain decisions.
• Adhere to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards and regulations.
• Benchmark and compare their sustainability performance against industry competitors.

Life cycle impact assessments (LCIAs) are a standard method to establish CO2e baselines and provide manufacturers with standardized emissions estimates for product lifecycle areas that are impossible to measure accurately.

Carbon assumptions for a product’s in-use phase can be entirely different from reality. A car, for example, could burn fossil fuels for 300,000 miles within the range of established fuel consumption values, or it could be written off in an accident after 1,000 miles. Similarly, a product designed for 90% reuse could still end up in a landfill and not achieve its optimal contribution to the circular economy.

An LCA is a great tool for making assumptions and using averages. How-ever, the manufacturing process doesn’t require that level of guesswork, so a more precise baseline would be beneficial for that phase. aPriori’s automated sustainability insights solution closes the gap by integrating data from ecoinvent, a leading third-party LCA and inventory database tool. aPriori utilizes ecoinvent’s database to quickly establish environmental baselines and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions at the product level. With automated and more precise baselining, teams can quickly move to the second phase of sustainability maturity: evaluating and selecting sustainable suppliers.

Stage 2: Select Sustainable and Responsible Global Suppliers

Next, evaluate and select suppliers based on their local electricity mix, material supply, and processes (Scope 3). Procurement teams can create digital factories for each supplier to see each vendor’s carbon impact, and then compare vendors using the same production criteria (e.g., the same production volume, manufacturing process and equipment, etc.). Digital factories will also show how the energy mix and energy consumption of a supplier in India, for example, compares with production facilities located in Mexico and China. Product teams aim to enhance the sustainability of existing innovations through informed supplier selections instead of resorting to costly design or material changes. Sustainable sourcing offers the most straightforward approach to reducing CO2e by minimizing the need for extensive design changes, and therefore can be implemented at any time. However, it is difficult for product teams to capitalize on this opportunity without a dedicated and standardized tool such as aPriori.

aPriori provides manufacturers with complete visibility into the sustainability of their supply chain, through a digital twin of the manufacturing facilities at their disposal, empowering them to make data-driven sourcing decisions.

By utilizing aPriori for sustainable sourcing, companies can:

• Explore various “what-if” scenarios (regions, routings, materials, volumes/batches, suppliers, make vs. buy).
• Reduce iterations and negotiation by digitally connecting buyers and suppliers.
• Fill skills gaps with exposure to granular, actionable, real-world sourcing data.
• Identify sustainable procurement strategies to support internal ESG goals and initiatives.

Stage 3: Optimize Existing Products for Cost and Carbon

The path toward greener products involves optimizing existing product innovations. In stage three, product teams can consider alternative materials with lower carbon or higher recycled content. And they can also make processes more efficient to improve cost and environmental sustainability, or look to utilize renewable energy sources.

The objective is to minimize cost overruns and release products at target costs to maintain profitability and competitive advantage. However, this is difficult to achieve when cost engineering teams are limited to conventional, labor-intensive costing tools like manual spreadsheets. And the complexity of this challenge heightens when the situation extends to CO2e emissions. This is because spreadsheet-based solutions cannot:

• Evaluate the complex interrelationships between direct and secondary cost & carbon drivers in real time
• Accurately manage cost & carbon variables in an ever-changing global supply chain
• Identify and capitalize on cost & CO2e reduction opportunities during early product design phases

aPriori provides a precise, real-world product cost optimization solution to make highly informed and effective manufacturing decisions. aPriori’s cloud solution can simulate production based on product design (geometry), manufacturing overhead costs, direct labor hours, machine hours, and more. This capability can be fully automated through PLM integration.

Additionally, aPriori enables companies to navigate and manage rising material costs, inflationary pressures, and other external risks to build cost-effective products. aPriori also automatically notifies and provides actionable feedback to design, manufacturing, and sourcing teams when products exceed cost thresholds. This facilitates seamless collaboration among product development teams, enabling them to eliminate cost drivers early and maintain corporate profit margins proactively.

Stage 4: Remove Embodied CO2e Through Data-driven Product Design

The final stage of sustainability maturity represents the most challenging path and the greatest opportunity for reducing GHG emissions. Product engineers can typically compare multiple product designs and intuitively select the most cost-effective option for both cost and DFM. But when you add carbon to the mix, the answer is usually far from obvious.

But by using real-time CO2e feedback from the 3D CAD model, teams can proactively modify the product’s design to reduce its embodied carbon. They can also ensure that a product meets its targets for cost, DFM, and sustainability by selecting the option that best balances all requirements for sustainable design.

Take the Next Step to Optimize Sustainable Design

Optimizing sustainable design and manufacturing is not just a choice: it’s pivotal to addressing today’s market requirements and customer demands. aPriori’s four-step sustainability maturity model presents a comprehensive strategy for manufacturers to align their operations with environmental stewardship while enhancing profitability and market competitiveness.

aPriori’s four-stage model provides a roadmap for best-in-class green manufacturing based on strategic design strategies. It also underscores the need for data-driven insights to make effective design choices amid increasingly complex supply chains. Mature companies in this area will contribute to global carbon reduction efforts and position themselves as leaders because sustainability is increasingly a determinant of success. Once you have the capability for evaluating both cost and carbon during design, and leveraging the same data for sourcing or procurement, you can then start to include the “cost of carbon” as a strategic tool. Leaders in this space are utilizing an internal carbon price (ICP) to convert the units of measure from Kg of CO2e to currency. This is exactly how the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, or CBAM is going to work from January 1st, 2026. This is why it makes a lot of sense to build carbon decision making into the same method as cost decision-making.

Furthermore, evaluations of a product’s cost are rarely left to assumptions or industry averages, but that is usually how the majority of product carbon footprint assessments are done. We all need to care as much about carbon emissions as we do cost. In 2024 alone, it is estimated that climate-related disasters wiped $2 trillion from our economy. That is more than the recession in 2008. In manufacturing, we have both responsibility, but also an opportunity to increase competitive advantage, by reducing the environmental impact of not only the use of the products, but the manufacture of them.

If you are interested to learn more about how you can combine cost, carbon emissions and manufacturability evaluations, based on 3D CAD data, get in touch via get.apriori.com/CTI-mag

The Automotive Industry’s Race to Zero Emissions

Mark Rushton, Sustainability Director, aPriori Technologies

Whether it is the end of the road for Internal Combustion Engines or not (due to synthetic fuels), the in-use phase of a vehicle’s carbon footprint will soon no longer be the most significant impact. Tackling embodied carbon proactively and cost effectively is how leading manufacturers are staying ahead of the competition.

Beyond Tailpipe Emissions

In the automotive industry, we are facing unprecedented challenges with the transition to emission free mobility. Innovation holds the key to success, but some innovations are too expensive to put into production. How can we try new manufacturing processes to get a competitive edge, without detailed cost and carbon footprint analysis of these new processes? Time could be lost experimenting. In this article, we will explore the 4 levels of product sustainabilty maturity that we have identified in customers and prospective customers of aPriori Technologies, from the Automotive Industry and beyond. It also explores various strategies to reduce the embodied carbon in automobiles.