DeepDrive
Munich, Germany
I spent just over five months as an Industrialisation Intern at DeepDrive, a Munich-based deep tech company developing next-generation electric motors. Its core innovation is the Dual Rotor Radial Flux Motor (DRFM): a stator enclosed between an inner and an outer rotor. Enclosing the stator rather than mounting it against a single rotor surface maximises the active magnetic surface area available for torque generation within a given envelope. The result is the highest efficiency at the lowest cost and weight, with 30% less permanent magnet, 50% less copper and 70% less iron than a conventional permanent-magnet motor at equal performance. DeepDrive applies the platform across in-wheel motors, central drives and generators for range extenders. My placement sat at the question of how to build it in volume: converting a validated design into a production process that is repeatable, scalable and cost-effective. I joined the small industrialisation team in the Production department as the company moves from prototype building to series production.
I supported industrialisation tasks across the motor-generator and in-wheel product lines, turning validated designs into processes that can be repeated reliably at volume. My main technical focus was the semi-automated assembly of the inverter, the power electronics that sit inside the motor and control it. I defined and programmed the automated build sequence, including servo-controlled pressing to defined force and position profiles and screwdriving to specified torque, and designed supporting tooling. I also contributed to a new stator insulation station that combined three previously separate operations into one, cutting their cycle time several-fold. Alongside this I supported production line layout planning, capacity, headcount and budget planning, and prepared material for customer and partner presentations.
The placement taught me how far a correct design sits from a manufacturable one: a part can be fully specified and still be impractical to assemble hundreds of thousands of times over. I learned to program industrial production machinery and to think in terms of process capability rather than function - what must be controlled at each step, in what order operations must run so that tolerances stack favourably, and where a sequence must stop and verify instead of continuing. Just as valuable was building a working picture of the electric machine as a whole: how the electromagnetic design, the winding, the insulation system and the inverter interact, and therefore which features of an assembly are electrically consequential rather than merely mechanical.
The skill I developed most was time management and prioritisation. As I integrated into the company, requests arrived from several departments at once, and I learned to plan realistically, to agree priorities with my supervisors rather than assume them, and to be open about my capacity early, so that colleagues could plan around what I could genuinely deliver instead of being let down later. I also learned to pitch technical content at the audience in front of me: process capability for engineering colleagues, cost, capacity and timing for commercial ones.