TOKYO -- NSK Ltd., a Japanese supplier of electric power steering systems and old-school components such as ball bearings, sees growth potential in the era of electrified cars, thanks to increasing demand for high-spec bearings in motors and actuators.
And after backing off from its efforts to land Detroit 3 contracts after the 2008 recession hit, NSK now wants to expand its business with the U.S. automakers, through electric power steering and new bearings.
The Japanese company's biggest customers include Renault-Nissan Alliance, Toyota, Volkswagen, Suzuki and Honda. Business with Detroit dwindled with the bankruptcy reorganizations of General Motors and Chrysler and the global financial crisis. And NSK never had a strong foothold with Ford to begin with, said NSK CEO Toshihiro Uchiyama, speaking at a media roundtable last month.
But Uchiyama wants to change that.
"We are now restarting our approach to those customers, and they appreciate our technologies in certain areas, especially tapered roller bearings and wheel bearings," he said. "We have penetrated Ford for the first time with our wheel bearings used in the new Mustang and that will be expanded this year to the Explorer. And even in the next model of the Explorer, Ford is seriously looking at using our bearings."
Uchiyama outlined the strategies as part of a midterm plan to lift NSK's automotive revenue 1.6 percent to ¥700 billion yen ($6.6 billion) in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019.
That is a meager increase. But NSK sees future growth coming from new trends in the industry.
Demand is expected to surge for other bearings that are high-spec, in terms of being miniaturized, ultra-low friction or extra durable, as component systems inside cars increasingly become electrified to help increase fuel economy.
By powering systems such as brakes and turbochargers with electric motors and actuators instead of hydraulic power, autos can reduce the strain on the engine to boost fuel efficiency. Those motors rely on the sort of durable next-generation bearings that NSK is talking about.
Today's cars use between 60 and 80 motors, running everything from power windows to door mirrors. That number is expected to double in the near future, and that will trigger an explosion in bearing demand, Uchiyama said.
"Currently some motors are very basic," Uchiyama said. "But in the future, brake actuation will be motorized instead of hydraulically controlled. And maybe automatic transmissions too. And turbochargers may be electrified. Those kind of applications require more robust bearings rather than just commodity bearings."
Newer automatic transmissions with more gears will also spur demand for needle bearings. Over the next three years, NSK expects revenue from those and other powertrain products to grow 26 percent to about $2.25 billion. In the three years after, according to the company's internal forecasts, revenues from the segment will increase by another 17 percent to about $2.63 billion.
NSK is also targeting new electrical component businesses. Revenue from that segment should climb 10 percent to about $703 million over the next three years, and jump another 20 percent in the three years after that.
New electric power steering systems could be another inroad with the Detroit 3.
GM and Ford traditionally use rack or pinion type electric power steering. But NSK expects a migration to column-assist electric steering, in which the motor that assists the steering is located on the steering column, because it is less costly. That would play into NSK's strength as the world's No. 3 supplier of electric steering.
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