Southern Indiana Business Report
The growing transition of the automotive industry from internal combustion vehicles to electric motor vehicles, the “electrification megatrend” as some call it, is already impacting businesses in multiple southwestern Indiana communities.
Bedford recently received word that GM’s Castings Operations facility would receive its second tranche of capital investment to produce parts for electric vehicles, and in Jasper, Kimball Electronics is expected to see growing demand from its automotive end market customers as electrification and autonomous technology increases the need for the types of assemblies that Kimball Electronics has decades of experience producing.
The Automotive vertical of Kimball’s business posted sales of $185 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2023 for the company. The sales amounted to 46% of company sales for the quarter as well, a 21% sequential step-up from the previous quarter.
Among the contributors to the strong growth in the automotive components vertical was the launch of a new next-generation electronic braking program whose contract was won by Kimball Electronics and is being carried out in the company’s Reynosa Mexican facility; that facility’s footprint has doubled in size in the past year to handle the volume of new production occurring there.
The electrification and the increasing development of autonomous vehicle and driver assistance capacity in new vehicle models is providing the company with increased production activity related to components used for battery management, electronic steering, electronic motor controls, and redundant safety systems as well.
Nexteer, a Detroit-based automotive supplier focused on advanced steering technologies, HL Mando, a Korean producer of technologies for autonomous driving, and engine producer Cummins, Inc., of Columbus, Indiana are some of the customers who rely on Kimball to provide assembly work.