Sevcon was an
eProducts company, that manufactured controls for
electric vehicles. In September 2017, Sevcon was acquired by
BorgWarner.
History
Early years
Sevcon Engineering Ltd. was founded in 1961. The company was formed to develop technology originated by Horace William Heyman (13 March 1912 - 4 September 1998), who had been managing director of
Smith Electric Vehicles
Smith Electric Vehicles (also known as Smith's) is a manufacturer of electric trucks. The company, founded in 1920 in the north of England, moved its headquarters to Kansas City, Missouri in 2011. Smith suspended all operations in 2017.
Smit ...
from 1949 until 1964. It was the largest manufacturer of electric vehicles in Europe.
Heyman's technology improved battery life for frequent start-stop runs of electric vehicles at low speeds. There were always large electrical losses on starting an electric vehicle because of
electrical resistances heating up. The technology allowed a 20% reduction in battery size for equivalent power, or increased battery length or power for a standard-sized battery.
An electric vehicle would have had resistances to
drop the voltage on the motor when starting, but this created heating. His technology employed
semiconductor-controlled rectifiers, with a semiconductor oscillator, which provided pulses of electrical power to power the motor.
It opened its first subsidiary in 1968 in Paris. In 1969 it was bought by Tech/Ops of the US.
It won the Queen's Award to Industry in April 1970, and the
Queen's Awards for Export in April 1975. A new factory opened in June 1970 at
Team Valley
Team Valley is a trading estate located in Gateshead. It is home to the Retail World retail park, with many large, international companies are based in the area's trading estate. In 2017, there were approximately 700 companies on the estate, emp ...
, Gateshead.
In 1988 it was listed on the US stock exchange, then joined the
NASDAQ Capital Market
The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...
in 2009.
In 2011 the NASDAQ ticker was changed from TO (Tech/Ops Sevcon, Inc.) to SEV (Sevcon, Inc.).
Later years
In 2014 Sevcon entered into a joint venture Chinese tier-one automotive supplier to form Sevcon New Energy Technology. However, in June 2016 the 50% equity was bought out by Sevcon to become wholly owned by Sevcon, Inc.
In February 2016, Sevcon acquired an Italian battery charger business, adding an additional facility based in Italy to Sevcon.
Acquisition by BorgWarner
In September 2017, following a period of rapid expansion, Sevcon was acquired by
BorgWarner. From January 2019, the development and operations of the majority of the former Sevcon products was transferred to the BorgWarner (formerly Sevcon) facility in Lugo Italy.
Structure
The parent company Sevcon, Inc. was based in Boston, Massachusetts, US. With the Sevcon Ltd. UK head office situated opposite the automotive centre of
Gateshead College on the
Team Valley
Team Valley is a trading estate located in Gateshead. It is home to the Retail World retail park, with many large, international companies are based in the area's trading estate. In 2017, there were approximately 700 companies on the estate, emp ...
trading estate. In 2017 at the time of the acquisition by BorgWarner, Sevcon had additional sales and engineering facilities in France, Japan, South Korea and China.
At various times it outsourced much of the manufacture of its components to Fideltronik in Poland, SRX in Malaysia and
KeyTronic in Mexico & China. A subsidiary, ICW Ltd, manufactures
film capacitor
Film capacitors, plastic film capacitors, film dielectric capacitors, or polymer film capacitors, generically called film caps as well as power film capacitors, are electrical capacitors with an insulating plastic film as the dielectric, sometime ...
s in Wrexham, UK. This subsidiary was later sold to Charcroft.
Products were sold direct to OEM manufacturers, or through an extensive network of distributors.
References
{{reflist
External links
Sevcon Official WebsiteDistributors for Sevcon products (following BorgWarner Acquisition)
1961 establishments in England
Automotive companies of the United Kingdom
Automotive electronics
Companies based in Tyne and Wear
Electronics companies established in 1961
Companies listed on the Nasdaq
Electrical engineering companies of the United Kingdom
Electric vehicles
Gateshead