After about a decade of development, ClearMotion’s technology — designed to improve the in-car experience for drivers and passengers — is headed toward production.
The Billerica-based company announced Saturday morning that it had secured its first production order for 3 million units of its active suspension technology from Chinese electric vehicle company NIO.
ClearMotion co-founder and CTO Zack Anderson said this is roughly a billion-dollar contract for ClearMotion.
Anderson said the company’s software-controlled actuators cancel out unwanted motion from uneven road surfaces, dampening the impact of bumps and turns. The technology can also add motion to coincide with in-car entertainment, such as video games or movies.
BostInno reporter Hannah Green took a ride in a car outfitted with ClearMotion’s technology. Get a sneak peek at how these software-controlled actuators work.
ClearMotion was founded in 2009 by Anderson and Shakeel Avadhany, who is now its chief business officer. The co-founders met at MIT and initially launched the company to generate energy from cars traversing off-road terrain. Around 2012, Anderson said they began focusing on suspension innovations as autonomous technology and the in-car experience became a larger focus in the automotive industry.
The company’s patented active suspension technology, called ClearMotion1, will be used in NIO’s new electric vehicle, the ET9, which was also unveiled Saturday.
Anderson said ClearMotion has been working closely with NIO over the past three years to validate its technology.
“They basically said, 'We need motion control in the car and we’re going to go to the whole market and see who has this.' They went to every supplier and they did an exhaustive evaluation and basically came to the conclusion we were the only system that could deliver this experience,” Anderson said. “And, we could do it in a scalable way that could scale across their fleet.”
While the production announcement focuses on ClearMotion1’s ability to cancel unwanted motion, Anderson said “entertainment is a key part of the overall NIO launch strategy” and that the Chinese company has a “clear product plan for how they’re rolling out features.”
ClearMotion has its headquarters in Billerica, with about 60 employees, and it says it plans to open a production facility in China. Anderson said the facility will be fully operational in about three months.
This partnership with NIO doesn’t preclude ClearMotion from working with other original equipment manufacturers, Anderson said. Next year the Billerica company plans to pursue other interested customers. Anderson said they plan to have additional announcements next year on this front.
ClearMotion has raised about $350 million to date, including a $32 million investment from NewView Capital, Acadia Woods, BAI Capital and others the company announced in May. At the time, Anderson said the recent funding brought them to the “key milestone of getting product out there on the road.”
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