Currently reading: Horse: Why 'everyone is interested' in partnering new engine maker

Geely-Renault engine maker in demand amid slower-than-expected growth in EV sales

"Everybody is interested" in working with Horse Powertrain, a company co-created by the Renault Group and Geely with the goal of being the world’s number-one combustion engine maker, its boss has told Autocar.

“I would challenge you to think of one name we’re not talking to,” said Matias Giannini, as manufacturers try to balance the need to invest in electric vehicles with the need to sustain production of internal-combustion cars.

Horse isn’t even a year old yet is already a near-€15 billion (£13bn) company, because it includes all of Renault’s and Geely’s non-electric powertrain operations, supplying the two groups’ models with combustion engines around the world.

Renault and Geely each have a 45% shareholding in the company, with Saudi Arabian state-owned oil giant Aramco holding the remaining 10%.

Horse has divisions in China and Europe and its existing technology already covers 80% of use cases and global powertrain types and demands around the world, according to Giannini.

Beyond inheriting the Geely and Renault groups’ legacy operations, Horse has the goal of partnering other manufacturers to develop and supply them with powertrains, to allow them to focus on the investment in and development of EVs.

Giannini said: “Our proposition can actually help create huge value [for manufacturers].

Horse drop-in hybrid powertrain concept

“In the beginning, there was a little bit of a misconception, a misunderstanding of our purpose. Are we competing [with manufacturers]? Are we here to replace their manufacturing? If they’re satisfied with a solution that they have, we don’t need to touch that. We’re here to understand where they have gaps, where they have problems and how we can help those problems.”

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Giannini said the recent renaissance of hybrid technologies and the realisation that EVs won’t be the sole vehicle type in the future “presents a huge problem for car makers” that have switched their investments to focus solely on batteries and motors.

To now invest again in ICE car technology is “not viable” for them, he said.

Showcased at the recent Shanghai motor show, this demonstrator contains a combustion engine, an electric motor, a gearbox and related electronics in a single unit that can be located into the same space as an EV’s main drive motor.

“We have to make that conversion” from EVs to this compact hybrid powertrain, believes Giannini.

“That’s the only way that manufacturers are going to make money,” he said. “The only reason they don’t make money [on EVs] is not because of the price of the battery any more: that has come down. It’s because of volume: it’s not there to amortise all that investment they’re making on those vehicles.”

Q&A: Matthias Giannini, CEO, Horse Powetrain

Horse CEO Matthias Giannini

What is your goal?

“It’s fairly simple, actually. Even if we believe in all the numbers that we’ve seen, the most optimistic is for 50% of the vehicles in 2040 to be battery-electric. What do we do with the other 50%? We came to the game saying ‘we have to also continue to improve the other 50%’, and that’s our mission. That’s our goal.”

How will you do that?

“We’re here to find where manufacturers have a problem and how we can help them solve the problem to accelerate the transition to net zero. That problem could be a manufacturer that doesn’t have a hybrid engine; we can offer that to them. It can be that they don’t have a presence in a certain region; we can offer that to them.”

How can manufacturers most benefit?

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“The most beautiful thing about this is when manufacturers think about their next line-up, they don’t have to worry about having EV and non-EV. They can focus on only developing battery-electric-vehiclebased architectures, but now [with us] they have a multi-energy solution that they can offer.”

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Mark Tisshaw

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Title: Editor

Mark is a journalist with more than a decade of top-level experience in the automotive industry. He first joined Autocar in 2009, having previously worked in local newspapers. He has held several roles at Autocar, including news editor, deputy editor, digital editor and his current position of editor, one he has held since 2017.

From this position he oversees all of Autocar’s content across the print magazine, autocar.co.uk website, social media, video, and podcast channels, as well as our recent launch, Autocar Business. Mark regularly interviews the very top global executives in the automotive industry, telling their stories and holding them to account, meeting them at shows and events around the world.

Mark is a Car of the Year juror, a prestigious annual award that Autocar is one of the main sponsors of. He has made media appearances on the likes of the BBC, and contributed to titles including What Car?Move Electric and Pistonheads, and has written a column for The Sun.

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