In this interview, Matt Styf and Kyle Rudge from Sensata Technologies discuss the latest innovations in battery management systems, fast disconnect devices, and emerging trends in the electrification and automotive industries.
Please introduce yourself and your role at Sensata Technologies
Matt: My name is Matt Styf, and I’m a Senior Account Manager at Sensata Technologies. I support our contactor, insulation monitoring and battery management system product lines.
Kyle: My name is Kyle Rudge, and I’m the Global Product Owner for Fast Disconnect devices at Sensata Technologies. I support global product strategy for Fast Disconnects and other high-voltage components to support our customers in the automotive and on and off road heavy vehicle sectors.
Sensata is known for its expertise in sensing and electrical protection. How does this expertise translate into your battery management and high voltage solutions, and how do these systems improve safety and performance?
Matt: Great question. Over the years, Sensata has acquired several companies to strengthen its electrification strategy, one of them being Lithium Balance, who specialized in battery management systems.
Since acquiring that company, we've enhanced and developed battery management solutions that improve critical safety features within the battery pack. Specifically, the complex SOX algorithms within our software help us achieve the safety-critical features that our customers—and their clients within the electrification industry—need for their products.
Kyle: Sensata Technologies is an established leader in the automotive, industrial, heavy vehicle, and aerospace markets, where our sensors have been used by customers for a long time.
In 2018 Sensata acquired Gigavac, an electrification-focused company, to expand our portfolio and bring solutions like high voltage contactors to our broader customer base. Thanks to our established manufacturing, supply chain, and global customer footprint, the transition of these electrification products to a global scale has been smooth.
Our long history of providing precision products for sensing and safety applications is now complemented by our electrification portfolio, which includes safety-critical devices in switching, disconnect, and battery management control to ensure our customers' systems operate safely and appropriately.
With energy efficiency becoming a critical focus, how does Sensata’s technology support sustainability and energy optimization in battery applications across industries?
Matt: In the electrification industry, all our products inherently support sustainability by moving away from fossil fuels. Specifically, we have insulation monitoring devices in our charging infrastructure, which were part of the acquisition of Sendyne in 2021.
Additionally, our battery management solutions include complex algorithms—such as state of health, state of charge, and other SOX algorithms—that enhance sustainability and energy optimization.
Kyle: As a company, we’re globally focused on helping our customers transition to a more electrified world. One key area where we’re driving this is through Sensata EL, a branded initiative within Sensata Technologies that focuses on supporting customer applications in the electrified space.
In the automotive sector, we primarily work with electric vehicle manufacturers, providing devices that enable larger battery packs, longer ranges, and improved vehicle performance. This makes vehicles in EV space more competitive, say, versus traditional combustion engine vehicles.
We're doing similar work across other sectors, such as charging infrastructure, aviation electrification, and renewable power distribution. By offering solutions that support electrification, we’re helping to drive cleaner, more sustainable products onto the global market.
Image Credit: JLStock/Shutterstock.com
Sensata emphasizes modular and scalable battery management solutions. Can you explain how this flexibility benefits manufacturers in designing systems for different battery sizes and applications, from electric vehicles to grid storage?
Matt: Yes, specifically with our battery management system product lineup, we have three different product lines that fit various voltage and current ranges. We cover 48-volt applications, 110-volt applications, and even up to 1,000-volt applications with our high-energy battery management system, the n-BMS. This system is set up as a modular solution so that we can fit different battery sizes for the customer.
Kyle: We really emphasize the modular aspect of our product lines to help customers scale quickly. As I mentioned earlier, even before entering the electrification space, we had a large global manufacturing footprint with facilities in places like Mexico, Bulgaria, China, and Malaysia, to name a few. Having these production facilities, along with modular products that can scale quickly, allows us to support our customers with much faster lead times.
We're seeing, especially in the EV space, customers pushing for much quicker lead times for launches and products to stay competitive as OEMs worldwide move into that market.
Having modular products that are proven and tested across a wide range of applications makes scaling, validation, and implementation at the vehicle level much easier and faster.
What are the most common challenges that your clients face in the battery industry, and how does Sensata address these challenges with its BMS and sensor technologies?
Matt: For us, the most common challenges in the battery industry are time to market, and the ability to meet our customers' unique requirements. Each customer has specific needs, and no two clients are the same.
This means we must carefully review each customer’s requirements and determine how our off-the-shelf battery management system and Creator Tool software can be flexible enough to meet those needs. This flexibility is a unique selling point for us and is critical to our success in the marketplace.
Kyle: From a technology perspective, many of the challenges our vehicle customers face are about increasing range and improving performance to stay competitive with combustion engine vehicles. We're seeing a push for higher voltages, greater current requirements, and increased tolerance for extreme temperature, vibration, and mechanical durability. With regards to current in particular, we're seeing higher short circuit withstand requirements. Our latest generation of contactors are designed to meet those needs, providing higher performance in short-circuit scenarios.
With the battery industry evolving rapidly, what emerging trends are you focused on? Are there any new products or technologies that you're particularly excited to introduce to the market?
Matt: Yes, are excited to offer the following new products:
One is within the isolation monitoring product line. We’re working toward the necessary industry certifications, including UL 1998 and UL 2231, for our new SIM200 product. This CAN-based product is especially important for fault detection in charging infrastructure.
Secondly, within battery management solutions, we just launched the n3-BMS , our third-generation high-voltage battery management system, which comes with ISO 26262 certification. This certification is crucial for anyone working with on-highway applications, such as commercial trucks, transit buses, and medium/heavy duty trucking industry.
Kyle: As the industry evolves, particularly in the heavy vehicle, truck, and on-road sectors, there are many updates regarding requirements and standards for charging and vehicle compliance, especially with NACS and MCS coming up on the trucking side.
One product we're really excited about is our EVCC, or electric vehicle communication controller. It's a plug-and-play solution that can easily adapt to any system and is AUTOSAR-embedded, allowing it to work seamlessly with many of the vehicle platforms already in place.
Electric Vehicle Communication Controllers. Image Credit: Sensata
The EVCC is CCS-compliant, and our next generation will be NACS and MCS-compliant as well as Bidirectional Power Transfer Capabilities. We're looking to ensure that our customers have an easy way to facilitate communication between their trucks and chargers, all while meeting updated standards. This is crucial as we expand charging infrastructure globally, ensuring vehicles remain compliant and connected.
In the automotive space, I am really excited about our offerings for Fast Disconnect devices. As customers migrate to higher voltage applications, current thermal fuse technology that many of our competitors offer isn’t robust enough to meet the disconnect times required.
For instance, if you use a thermal fuse in these high-voltage systems, it takes longer to degrade in an overcurrent scenario, which could lead to contactor rupture caused by levitation, posing serious risks to the driver and the system.
Our GigaFuse devices are fully passive and provide a fast disconnect of less than three milliseconds, ensuring a clean break that is efficient and doesn’t rely on any other controls or system inputs. Additionally, we’re launching our PyroFuse in 2025. It’s a fully active fast disconnect device that can break in less than one millisecond and is fully sealed, to prevent release of any gases or materials from the break event.
GigaFuse (left) and PyroFuse (right). Image Credit: Sensata
These products allow Sensata to offer both active and passive solutions tailored to our customers' applications and battery management systems, ensuring they have a robust protection system for their devices and overall systems.
About Matt Styf and Kyle Rudge
Matt Styf is a Senior Account Manager at Sensata Technologies. He is an experienced Sales Manager/Project Manager with over 20 years of experience in Electrification of Automotive, Defense, Governmental Projects with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan Technological University.
Kyle Rudge is a Global Product Owner at Sensata Technologies, specializing in Vehicle High Voltage Components. He has a diverse background in program management and engineering across
automotive, defense, and energy industries and has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University.
To Find Out More...
- Contactors & Fuses: https://www.sensata.com/products/gigavac-power-contactors-fuses
- GTM – Glass-to-metal contactors: https://www.sensata.com/products/gigavac-power-contactors-fuses/gtm-contactors
- SGX Contactors: https://www.sensata.com/products/gigavac-power-contactors-fuses/sgx-contactors
- Gigafuse – passive fast disconnect, with an optional active trigger: https://www.sensata.com/products/gigavac-power-contactors-fuses/gigafuse
- Battery Management Systems: https://www.sensata.com/products/battery-management-systems
- Insulation Monitoring Devices: https://www.sensata.com/products/insulation-monitoring-devices
- EVCC – Electric Vehicle Communication Controller: https://www.sensata.com/products/electric-vehicle-communication-controllers/evcc
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