Innovation and Investments

In the area of brake discs for cars and light commercial vehicles, in 2023 the strategic priority was the development of solutions to meet the criteria of the new Euro 7 standard.

The proposal for defining the new Euro7 standards on pollutant emissions from cars and commercial vehicles is currently awaiting the final approval by the European Commission.

For the first time, this proposal will also include provisions on emissions of particulate matter from braking systems. The entry into force of the new standard is expected to take place starting from 2026 for all cars and light commercial vehicles and as of 2028 for heavy vehicles.

Brembo has been active for years in the development of solutions for the reduction of particulate emissions from brakes. As early as in 2020, Brembo had presented its GreentiveR disc, which is characterised by an innovative coating applied to the cast-iron braking ring that ensures very low wear and tear, extends disc life and, thanks to the combination with the specifically developed friction material, also reduces particulate emissions during braking, thus limiting the impact on the environment.

Relying on the expertise gained through GreentiveR, Brembo has forged ahead with research, development and testing of advanced solutions to be applied to cast-iron discs through the study of materials and the adoption of technologies and surface treatments never used before for brake disc applications After defining for each market segment the product most suitable for the different needs of individual customers, in 2023 activities mainly focused on application developments with the major European market players.

Equally important is Brembo Friction's concurrent development of brake pads that can markedly contribute to creating an ideal combination with the brake disc.

Thinking of the single component — disc or pad — as an independent unit fails to address the problem of emissions in its entirety. The development of a friction module, consisting of disc and pad, designed for each of these new types of disc therefore becomes essential for achieving emission key targets without compromising performance, thus managing to offer Brembo customers solutions consistent with the Group's vision and its guiding principles: low emissions, high performance and best driving experience.

Considerable attention is being devoted to the new needs of hybrid and electric vehicles: as they use regenerative braking, they introduce new requirements for brake discs, instrumental to solving issues relating to disc resistance to corrosion.

All the new solutions, which aim to reduce environmental impact and improve aesthetics and corrosion resistance, are meeting with strong interest among Brembo's main clients.

In this regard, the development phases with major car manufacturers continued, while in Europe production of discs that will adopt one of these technologies began already in 2023.

According to precise guidelines applied throughout the automotive sector and all of the Group’s development activities, Brembo also devotes considerable attention to new solutions that are able to reduce disc weight: a lower weight translates into a greater driving range for electric vehicles and lower fuel consumption of internal combustion vehicles, and consequently into a reduced environmental impact. This aspect will become even more important due to the entry into force of the new European Regulation setting stricter limits on polluting emissions generated by cars and commercial vehicles.

In car applications, after having worked with a major German customer to develop the concept for the light brake disc installed in its new platform of core vehicles, Brembo will also extend the supply of this product — which enables a reduction in weight of up to 15% compared to a conventional disc due to the combination of two different materials (cast iron for the braking ring and a thin steel laminate for the disc hat) — to a new platform of fully electric vehicles, whose application development phase is underway.

The lightweight disc was also successfully developed for other major car manufacturers, which already use it to equip some of their models, attracting the interest of other Brembo customers, especially in the Far East market and among the new players entering the electric vehicle market.

At some major European clients, the application development activity on discs for heavy commercial vehicles — a segment which is of particular interest to Brembo — entered its final phase with solutions aimed at improving performance and reducing weight. Series production of these discs will start in 2024.

Building on the experience gained in the field of light commercial vehicles, 2024 will see research and development of new products continue in this sector as well, so as to comply with the pollutant emission requirements (Euro 7).

The design strategy activity continued, which, in addition to defining the style of all the segment’s new products, aims to increase the ability to meet customer needs through greater product customisation using modular production lines.

The first product resulting from this strategy was the new top-of-the-line HYPURE monobloc front caliper, which was presented to the market in November 2023 and is scheduled for production in June 2024 for the first customer. As part of the design strategy activities, the development of a new front brake master cylinder has been launched, which envisages the completion of the Design Freeze phase by the end of the first quarter of 2024.

Work continued on integrating the GBU's various companies (Brembo S.p.A, J.Juan, SBS Friction and Brembo Brake India) with the aim of sharing methodologies and expertise in order to present themselves to customers as Brake System Suppliers and Solution Providers. Thanks to this approach, new European and Indian application projects are thus being developed that will allow Brembo to increase its footprint in both the thermal engine and electric propulsion scooter market.

The search for new markets in the two-wheel field is also focusing on green mobility. A collaboration agreement was signed with a first customer for the development of a high-performance braking system to be used on high-performance products. After concluding the first set of tests on the "laboratory" prototypes, the product requirements were defined followed by the start of the Design Freeze phase, which will be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2024.

As regards methodology, a first digital project aimed to reduce the design times of the main motorbike products is underway. The process of automating the various design phases for the floating caliper has already been completed, reporting a 25% time reduction, and work has begun on the disc product. This methodology will be extended to all products within the next two years.

A second digital project aims to define the "mission profile" of motorbike brake products: the first data collection campaign throughout Italy has been closed with the goal of defining the motorbike product usage profile by April 2024, and then subsequently extending the data collection to Europe and the other continents.

Work is also continuing on developing "green" materials such as friction materials for pads: in particular, compounds with no "non-green" components are being developed for OEM products. In this way, Brembo aims to stand out as the first motorbike pad supplier with products compliant with the strictest automotive regulations.

The product roadmap is being gradually updated in accordance with the Company's mission and constant market developments. The continuous improvement of existing products, the development of new materials and technical solutions, and the focus on costs, especially with regard to products for low-cost countries, are the main drivers for newly developed products.

Since the first Formula 1 race in 2022, both the new evolution of racing discs and the latest generation carbon/carbon pad have been used, both produced and engineered entirely within the new dedicated plant in Curno (Italy), which is able to guarantee performance and production consistency at the highest levels.

The development of the full carbon braking system continued in 2023 with customers testing a new brake system specification. The results have been excellent and this new system will be used by major customers in 2024. Currently, all the activities are being set up to define the braking system of the new Formula 1 cars that will race in 2026: the main focus of the development remains the correct initial setting of the carbon system.

The new material, developed and produced entirely within the Carbon Factory, also made its debut in the new Hypercar category (LMH and LMDH) with very positive feedback, with Ferrari winning the Le Mans 24 Hours.

The carbon material produced within the Carbon Factory is also used for other competitions where this material is permitted to be used, such as Formula-E and the Japanese Super Formula.

In collaboration with Petroceramics, work continued on developing the carbon-ceramic material (CCMR) for both car and motorbike applications.

Brembo has already launched the innovation projects for the 2024-2026 three-year period, focusing on the introduction of new caliper concepts with amplified force, which are more efficient and lighter than the amplified calipers already used for several years in the car and motorbike racing world. Several new products have also been offered to the teams, including Formula 1 electro-hydraulic brake-by-wire systems made with innovative production technologies.

A new caliper concept has been approved on-vehicle and on dynamic test benches with a revolutionary type of fastening with eight pistons and four pads. The system’s first approval was with a new racing car with extreme characteristics that will be in production in 2024 and will have a full carbon braking system. The same caliper concept will also be used on a road car, again of the same customer, which will be developed in 2024-2025.

With regard to carbon ceramic discs intended for road applications, the validation of the new CCMR-L disc has been completed in 2023 with an important Brembo customer.

This disc features a ceramic layer that has further improved its performance also in terms of braking in. Production has started for another customer, while the approval of new systems, again for road application, will begin for three other customers.

For the first time, another customer will use a new brake caliper concept that is being designed at the Curno plant and will be subsequently produced and marketed by AP Racing. This new concept is also used on a track car with a carbon/carbon system and on a road car with CCMR-L carbon ceramic disc.

Thanks to the valuable collaboration of one of our technical development partners, the first characterisation phase for racing braking systems in terms of emissions has been completed. The information obtained will be essential for correctly guiding future choices.

In the mechatronic and smart systems area, the championships that saw the debut of two new electromechanical brake-by-wire systems ended.

In the Formula E championship, Brembo is the exclusive supplier of all 22 participating cars, which competed with the brake-by-wire systems on the car’s front axle and reported no problems.

In another championship, Brembo is the exclusive supplier of a team that has the latest version of the electromechanical braking systems controlled by electronic control units, also based on the layout of the vehicle and its regenerative capacity. This team achieved an important victory in 2023.

The car was equipped with the most advanced braking systems, all developed and produced in Curno: billet-machined monobloc calipers, discs in advanced material and 410 carbon pads, as well as the brake-by-wire electronically controlled electromechanical braking system.

It should be noted that the application development of these electromechanical brake-by-wire projects began in 2018 with the introduction of safety concepts already used in Formula 1 and, above all, with the introduction of the 48 Volt power supply on all Brembo systems.

Within the racing world, customers were offered the possibility to apply a new concept of electronically controlled braking system that can warn the rider if tyre grip is not sufficient to ensure a correct braking performance in a curve.

Other projects are being currently developed in the motorbike and mechatronic-digital fields and will be destined for normal commercial usage in a time frame of about three years.

Huge effort is being dedicated to the development of the future braking systems to be used on high-performance and racing cars with an electric powertrain, which is therefore no longer based on internal combustion. The Brembo Performance Division has analysed the requirements of electric motors and batteries to better integrate them into Brembo's current braking systems and, above all, to define their subsequent developments. Collaboration with universities and dedicated partners are in place for this project.

The first concept phase involves also the creation of a demonstration prototype at the "wheel corner" level of the regenerative braking system, defined BRB.

As regards the simulation field, testing is continuing of new calculation methodologies for the structural part and thermal properties of the disc, for the thermoelastic and fatigue calculation, as well as for integrating the calculation within the customer wheel unit — in other words, mechanical and thermal calculations with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solutions. Continuing with an internal project of constant fine-tuning on testing benches and in simulations that began some years ago, several testing and simulation methods were refined and further enhanced. For several years now, advanced integration of testing and calculation has made it possible to use various virtual sensors obtained through the calculation model and/or models obtained from the database.

For years, Brembo has offered its customers a methodology capable of processing braking torque starting from the system’s friction maps that are regularly provided to the teams together with the products. This is a typical virtual sensing application that was complemented in 2023 by the evolution of the new fully equipped caliper able to measure actual braking torque on the front and rear axles. Results were in line with expectations.

A number of virtual sensing applications are also available on cars that use the ceramic material, both in road and racing applications.

The work on integrating experimentation and simulation has also been extended to the production of Formula 1 discs. Brembo is able to couple the discs during the customer delivery stage with specific neural network algorithms, ensuring a more consistent performance when using the system. This methodology, started with Formula 1 systems, will be also applied to other systems in 2024.

This activity will continue in 2024 to integrate the world of simulation and the world of experimentation through tests on customer vehicle simulators and at Milan Polytechnic.

Specific research activities in the mechanical, composite material science, chemical and electronic/control fields are currently underway with Milan Polytechnic, which is an integral part of Brembo’s developments and an historical partner for technical development able to provide a valuable scientific contribution to research projects.

Friction's commitment to developing traditional, customer- oriented friction materials and increasingly high-performance materials for racing cars continues at a steady pace. The consolidated expertise on friction materials also relies on the know-how of the subsidiary BSCCB (Brembo SGL Carbon Ceramic Brakes), for the development of pads combined with carbon ceramic discs for ultra-high performance cars.

This commitment stands alongside and anticipates the trend of the automotive market, which is increasingly oriented towards sustainability and the introduction of hybrid and electric vehicles that require materials that are no longer merely high-performance, but also ecological, with a specific focus also on aesthetics.

The fact that for the first time the Euro 7 standard has also included the braking system, and in particular pad emissions, clearly outlines this trend.

Friction is therefore critical to expanding the portfolio of braking materials that allow to ensure high performance, guaranteeing braking safety and paying increasing attention both to the aesthetic aspect in general and to component corrosion. All this without neglecting driving comfort with the absence of noise and vibrations, as well as developing expertise that can also be applied in new and more complex systems such as the Electric Parking Brake and Sensify™.

Thanks to the constant technological evolution in the automotive field, the integration with new mechatronic systems has paved the way for the development of a brake pad concept with embedded sensors that aims to make the braking system increasingly integrated within new vehicles.

To this end, Brembo Friction avails of data-driven methods with a view to developing specific formulations and identifying the raw materials that most influence their different properties.

On this basis, dedicated works continued on developing friction materials aimed at increasingly innovative discs.

In fact, new coatings and new treatments require pads designed and produced specifically to reduce PM10 emissions.

This development is made possible by the support of cutting-edge internal testing, a top-tier laboratory, and constant collaboration with university centres. These allow the new approach for obtaining the best results to be defined synergistically, every time. In this way it is possible to extend the expertise gained in the field of passenger cars to light and heavy commercial vehicles as well.

Thanks to the skills acquired, projects that not only measure the quantity of particulates emitted but also at their quality are continuing, allowing Brembo to participate in various European projects (VERA, RE-BREATH).

The AFFIDA project made a further step forwards in reducing volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions. This is a natural extension of the COBRA project (part of the Europe an Life+ project) which aims to bring to the OE market the innovative technology of organic binders so as to enable the production of a brand-new pad concept.

With a view to sustainability and carbon neutrality, the Life Cycle Assessment and eco-design focus on the use of recyclable and recycled raw materials with a low environmental impact, as well as on the reduction of greenhouse gas generation during the production process.

The Group's interest in continuing and extending its leadership in the pad sector was also extended to the aftermarket through the newly formed BRGP joint venture (50% Brembo and 50% Gold Phoenix, world leader in pad production) in Jinan (Shandong, China), which has created Brembo's first production site entirely dedicated to the large-scale production of brake pads. Friction will play a crucial role in the project, bringing with it the skills acquired over the years. At the beginning of 2024, the new Greenance, EV Kit and Xtra kit products, which are enjoying so much success on the market, are expected to be launched.

The strong collaboration with SBS Friction, a company specialised in the development and production of brake pads from sintered and organic materials recently acquired by the Group, allows to expand the range of products and further advance Brembo’s expertise also in the motorbike sector.

With regard to Car and Commercial Vehicle Systems, all products are developed in accordance with the Group's vision and pursue its three guiding principles: low emissions, high performance and best driving experience.

The main example of the focus on these three principle is Sensify™, Brembo’s revolutionary braking system already presented to the European, Chinese, U.S. and Japanese press.

Sensify™ is an ecosystem in which artificial intelligence, software and sensors manage the braking of each wheel independently. The application development and industrialisation phases for Sensify™ are still ongoing, whereas launch into production with the first manufacturers will take place in 2025. Moreover, in keeping with Brembo’s strategic priorities, the promotional phase for Sensify™ is fully underway for both Group clients and new players that have entered the electric vehicles market.

With the Sensify™ ecosystem, individual components undergo important changes: the addition of sensors to brake caliper becomes fundamental and the collection of the resulting data yields an evolution of the entire braking system, which can thus be calibrated to the actual use of the vehicle, with the consequent benefits in terms of weight.

With reference to mechatronics — which is no longer a mere advanced research area, but also an application field — the promotional phase for electric parking brakes, in various configurations, for both cars and commercial vehicles up to 7.5 tonnes, is ongoing.

The guiding principle referring to low emissions, i.e., aimed at contributing to the reduction of vehicle consumption and the resultant CO2 and fine particulate emissions through braking systems, requires Brembo to adopt methods designed to minimise caliper mass, while maintaining performance and advancing solutions for the reduction of the residual torque.

The product and process improvement work is constantly ongoing in the same way as the search for solutions to reduce mass, optimise performance and improve styling.

Examples include the Dyadema™ caliper, designed to significantly reduce the track operating temperature, the Flexira™ caliper, developed to meet the needs of several new market segments, the OctymaTM caliper, in production since September 2023, designed to optimise pressure distribution in the pads-brake disc interface, and a new type of caliper developed with a methodology that allows mass to be reduced from 5% to 10%, which is scheduled to enter into production in the fourth quarter of 2024.

The development of friction materials also pursues low-emissions and high-performance objectives. In the case of the former, materials paired with coated discs are being developed, whereas, in the case of the latter, materials under development are paired with all types of carbon ceramic discs.

The ongoing evolution of simulation methodologies is focused on aspects linked to braking system comfort and caliper functionality. Brembo’s objective is to increase the simulation capacity of the entire braking system, including friction material. From this standpoint, the ability to rely on the know-how and installed capacity within the Brembo Friction project represents a strength for the Group, which can position itself as a supplier of solutions for complete braking systems.

On the other hand, the development of a methodology for simulating caliper functionality is aimed at establishing, during the design stage, the caliper characteristics that influence constant performance over time, the reduction of the residual torque and the car’s pedal feel.

Digitalisation of the Brembo product life cycle is ensured by the Product Development Methods function that, with the GBUs and GCFs, provides methodological and operational support for managing data and project flows.

Product Development Methods support and guide the GBUs/GCFs in adopting Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) throughout the phases of product development, seeking to combine the data from the various departments (digital thread) unambiguously and indissolubly, ensuring that it is traceable and distributing it securely to all internal stakeholders.

PLM is used to share design documents, development phases, the various technical bases and CAD drawings employed for numerical simulations. The simultaneous distribution of information through PLM promotes collaborative product development, resulting in reduced project development times.

Particular attention is paid to the development of parametric CAD models shared between multiple business functions to reduce development times and facilitate the parallelisation of design activities and to the reduction of low value-added human operations in traditional, error-prone and non-standardised design phases through the internal development of automated procedures directly linked to CAD models.

The state of the art of simulation of products and physical processes is constantly monitored — through dialogue with qualified suppliers and participation in conferences and university research projects — both to update the Company’s technological and methodological content and to realise virtual models that are increasingly representative of the reality that they seek to reproduce (multiphysics digital twins), thus rendering them more efficient and predictive.

To this end, particular emphasis is placed on simulation process automation, which translates the routine manual operations performed by simulation analysts into automatic digital flows, with the goal of condensing into procedures the know-how gained in implementing simulations and reducing errors relating to manual performance of such simulations, while also making them available to a broader audience.

The adoption of industrial process simulation using the "discrete event" method will also allow the optimisation of time and resources of industrial production flows by acting on the design of production lines within plants.

The most modern additive manufacturing and generative design techniques are also constantly monitored and tested to increase the final innovative content of the product under development.

On the basis of the know-how consolidated during the previous years, the global Data Science, Artificial Intelligence & High Performance Computing team continued its upgrade process. The process focuses on constantly broadening the resources dedicated to achieving the Company's digital transformation through the application of artificial intelligence.

In particular, the current historical phase focuses on hiring specific professionals and adopting technologies dedicated to software quality and on implementing complex software applications in an automated way.

In addition to Italy’s central team, the function currently avails of the operating unit at the Brembo Inspiration Lab Center of Excellence in Silicon Valley, California, and of that in China focused on the on-site collection and analysis of new data sources to feed all Brembo innovation processes.

Brembo Inspiration Lab's mission is part of the digital transformation plan. This is an operational and coordinated unit, stemming from the contribution of AI and Data Science, Advanced Product Technologies (in collaboration with the R&D GCF), Process Technologies and Business Development. The team is tasked with researching and executing rapid proofs of concept for new technologies enabling smart mobility, smart products and smart processes, in the infrastructure and in the cloud.

The global team carries out, inter alia, the following activities:

• developing mobile technologies for gathering data from multiple internal and external sources;
• assembling, analysing and enriching big data through virtual sensoring;
• developing inferential and predictive models; • industrial application of artificial intelligence, with a particular focus on product quality;
• digital automation techniques for office and production processes;
• development of software applications that implement the algorithms and solutions described above;
• development of apps for mobile devices (smartphones) and the related APIs (Application Programming Interfaces);
• construction of a patent portfolio for certifying know-how.

All the solutions developed in this context with a strong “continuous improvement” character are validated by the Group’s business and subsequently become part of the Brembo Solutions portfolio, so that they can be offered to the external market in accordance with the "solution provider" mission.
Acting as a competence centre for all GBUs and GCFs, the team operates within a multi-disciplinary ecosystem that brings together the expertise of Data Scientists, Big Data Engineers, Domain Experts and Project Managers, developed and constantly renewed through an intense internal training programme to ensure the spread of “Data Culture” according to Brembo.

GFC R&D activities constantly monitor vehicle evolution, in line with the main general trends which are: ensuring high performance, reducing emissions and providing users with the best possible experience.

To do this, the research areas Brembo is working on are electrification and the study of fuel cells, driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving, the constant reduction of environmental impact and connectivity. The high level of integration is increasingly bringing the brake system into dialogue with other vehicle systems, such as electric-drive motors and new suspension/steering concepts.

Such integration will allow for increased active safety and the optimisation of functions, such as regenerative braking.

Brembo is continuing to develop and refine the Sensify™ system, whose peculiarity lies in its "decentralised" architecture, in which each wheel side has its own electromechanical actuator for generating and controlling the required braking force. This evolution will lead Sensify™ to be increasingly integrated into the vehicle system in accordance with the development of its architecture.

Brembo continued to conduct its R&D activities with the aim of constantly seeking out new solutions to apply to brake discs and calipers, in terms of new materials, innovative technologies and mechanical and electronic components.

The constant need to reduce product weight is leading the research function to evaluate the use of unconventional materials or treatments, such as technopolymers or reinforced light metal alloys, to produce structural components. This approach is also necessary to further improve product sustainability, extending ecodesign and life cycle assessment methodologies (through the use of new specific programmes) to new projects and using such methodologies as a lever to developments increasingly geared towards sustainability and circularity.

New developments are also taking place in collaboration with universities and international research centres. Research activities continued with investees such as Infibra Technologies, a spin-off of the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, and PhotonPath, a spin-off from Milan Polytechnic, in the field of development of photonic sensors. This will allow to speed up the study and fine-tuning of new solutions for the digitalisation of braking systems, a path undertaken with the launch of the new Sensify ™ intelligent braking system.

The AppLogger project continued, in collaboration with the Digital & Innovation area. Launched in 2021, this project led to an application created exclusively by Brembo, able to collect braking data in a reliable, constant, continuous and anonymous way, with absolute respect for privacy.

After the 2022 release of a new version that allowed data collection in the Brembo cloud, in 2023 the application was made available not only to Brembo employees in EU countries, but also to those in the rest of the world, opening up the study of new features (e.g., the activation of personal statistics) that will allow further developments, also with a view to creating internal contests and reward programmes.

Given the growing importance attached to particulate emissions, Brembo is also working on several fronts to assess the emissions of its braking systems, through special test benches and with various research projects funded at European level.

Some of these projects aim at reducing fine particulate emissions, such as the LIFE RE-BREATH project, geared at demonstrating and measuring the reduction of PM10 emissions related to the braking system of buses, as well as at modelling a concentration map for pollutants emitted by brake wear; the project also intends to define a map of the exposure risk to pedestrian health, using two fleets of 10 buses in two European cities, Bergamo and Bratislava, located in regions having the highest declared concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10.

In this context, the VERA project intends to develop, optimise and show innovative tailpipe retrofit solutions for particle (sub-23nm) and NOX emissions from petrol and natural gas road vehicles that travel high mileages within the city (taxis, delivery vans, buses).

The nPETS (nano Particle Emissions from the Transport Sector) project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 in order to understand and mitigate the effects on public health of unregulated nanoparticle emissions.

The aim is to evaluate the impact of particles with dimensions below 100nm on humans and animals. The nPETS consortium aims to improve knowledge of exhaust and non-exhaust nanoparticle emissions generated by all modes of transport, their impact on health and, ultimately, how new government policies can reduce these emissions and their impacts.

The amount of particulate matter emitted by the braking system can be measured by performing specific tests, as required by Euro 7 standard. These tests are carried out on test benches that allow the collection of the particles emitted during braking, followed by laboratory analysis, which allows their numerical and, in some cases, also toxicological identification. A total of 3 dynamic benches that can perform these tests are available, one of which fully meets the requirements of the Euro 7 standard.

With regard to R&D, an activity is currently underway regarding the virtualisation of tests traditionally performed on the vehicle. This increases the efficiency of the development phase, reducing the number of tests performed on the vehicle only to those with high value added, where the driver’s actual perception is fundamental. The activities carried out on R&D vehicle simulators are of great support.

These allow different test conditions to be easily recreated by modifying the simulator set-up and providing the user with a similar perception to that experienced on the vehicle.

In 2023, the globalisation of innovation processes also began at Brembo Inspiration Lab, with the launch of the new ATC (Advanced Technology Center) in Silicon Valley: here, product innovation takes place in synergy with the integration of new methodologies and algorithms related to data science, making use of research centres, institutions and universities within the local innovation ecosystem.