Despite the difficult status quo of the automotive branch the participation of hofer powertrain has been a success: all the three presentations held by hofer representatives attached interest of the specialist audience - so that the hofer exhibition stand was very well attended during the koffee breaks.

For sure you know how hard it is to judge the shift behaviour of a manual gearbox. Subjective impressions such as “bad”, “bumpy” or “unpleasant” can only help up to a certain limited degree of further development and optimisation.

Early in April three endurance test benches for micro power plants were put into operation. Thus, now it is possible to run endurance tests, as well as make durability and benchmark analysis at these three test places.

In the course of the 6th Braunschweiger Symposium „Hybrid Vehicles und Energy Management“ taking place annually in the Braunschweiger Stadthalle Dr. Heinz Schaefer, the CEO of hofer eds GmbH, has made a presentation on the topic  „Wheel – Hub Drives versus Axle Drives“.

Regardless of the difficult time the automotive industry is experiencing nowadays the CTI Transmission Symposium 2008 in Berlin has been a very successful event for hofer powertrian.

The hofer development centre in Stuttgart will extend their testing area in 2009 by adding two powertrain- test benches. To be able to suit the needs and wishes of their customers, hofer will have two 440 kW powertrain test benches available in February 2009.

At the conference “Innovations in Mechanical Engineering” Heinz Aitzetmueller presented the hofer-own product VDC Transmission (Variable Double Clutch).

Floersheim - 01.11.08 – to be able to support the large amount of projects to develop energy efficient drivetrains hofer driveline GmbH has extended their testing and development capacity. Therefore we have moved to a new location. The new address is: Hafenstrasse 18, 65439 Floersheim am Main.

hofer powertrain GmbH has again taken part on a recruiting day. This time at the university in Albstadt-Sigmaringen.

hofer powertrain has taken part at the recruiting day at the campus Schöfferstrasse of the University of Darmstadt.

Würzburg – 01.08.08 – hofer powertrain opens an additional development centre: hofer electric drive systems, „short eds”. The activities of the development teams concentrate on the development of electric drive trains for hybrid- and electric-vehicles.

The manager of the operational business of hofer powertain in Italy, Alberto Giacometti, held a presentation “The role and the share of suppliers for the development and innovation in the automotive business” at the annual conference of the Turin Industry Association.

Wolfsburg - hofer getriebetechnik has had another chance to participate in an unordinary project of the future, likewise as by CAROLINE. The Formula Student racing car „LionsRacer“of the Technical University Braunschweig had been constructed with support of hofer getriebetechnik.

In June of this year hofer powertrain was again represented at the VDI Conference “Transmissions in Vehicles” – one of the most important technical conferences in this business field.

Mr. Dragan Popov referred about “Downsizing” out of the view of hofer powertrain at the 3rd international CTI Forum “Turbocharging” in Wiesbaden (16th-17th of June 2008).

Chemnitz – hofer mechatronik GmbH opens a new location in Chemnitz on the 1st of April 2008.

Urban Challenge 2007 (USA): robot cars without drivers competing against each other in a challenge. In Liaison with the University of Braunschweig hofer getriebetechnik GmbH has built up a robot car to take part in the American Urban Challenge. This competition attracts engineers from all over the world.  The robot cars have to manage a course in a city to show how they cope with realistic situations –including traffic rules and other traffic participants.

In cooperation with Mediengruppe Kirk there was carried out a media project regarding the business location Bavaria. The hofer AG demonstrates its systems competence in this film: product development from the idea to the serial production, process development for production, logistics and quality management as well as development & construction of measuring and testing equipment. Due to  its  branch competence in the fields of passenger cars, trucks, motor-bikes and off-highway hofer is THE development partner for transmission systems.