Komax Shanghai teams up with partners to accelerate aluminum wiring solutions for China’s electric vehicle industry

The agreement was signed during the opening day of Electronica China 2026 in Shanghai in July 2026 and marks an important milestone in the development of scalable aluminum wiring solutions for the automotive industry.

The partnership brings together leading expertise across the entire value chain, from advanced aluminum terminal processing (TE Connectivity), aluminum alloy material development (Boway Alloy) and ultrasonic welding technologies (SBT Ultrasonic Technology) to automated wire harness manufacturing (Komax). Together, the four companies aim to address the challenges associated with the large-scale adoption of aluminum conductors in automotive applications and create a robust innovation ecosystem for future vehicle architectures.

Responding to industry trends
The automotive industry is undergoing a significant transformation driven by vehicle electrification, lightweighting requirements, cost pressures, and increasingly ambitious carbon reduction targets. As electric vehicles require substantially more copper than conventional vehicles, concerns about long-term copper availability and rising material costs have intensified across the industry.

In China, which is the world’s largest consumer of copper, growing demand from the rapidly expanding electric vehicle market has further highlighted the need for alternative conductor materials. Aluminum has emerged as a promising solution due to its lower weight, favorable cost structure, and potential environmental benefits. However, achieving reliable, high-volume production of aluminum-based wiring systems requires close collaboration between material suppliers, equipment manufacturers, technology providers, and connector specialists.

Building a closed-loop innovation ecosystem
To address these challenges the four partners have established a comprehensive cooperation model covering material development, process innovation, equipment integration, engineering validation, and industrial-scale implementation. Each partner contributes unique capabilities to the collaboration:

• TE Connectivity, a global technology leader in connectivity and sensor solutions, plays a central role in new terminal design, engineering validation, and the qualification of new materials and technologies across diverse automotive applications.
• Boway Alloy brings extensive expertise in the development of high-performance aluminum alloy conductors and will provide advanced material solutions tailored to automotive applications.
• SBT Ultrasonic contributes industry-leading ultrasonic welding technologies that enable reliable electrical connections for aluminum conductors, helping to ensure process stability and consistency in large-scale production environments.
• Komax contributes its market-leading automation technologies for wire processing and wire harness manufacturing. Through its advanced processing systems, Komax enables the efficient and reliable industrialization of aluminum wire harness production, supporting vehicle manufacturers as they transition from copper to aluminum solutions.

Together, the four partners have created an integrated ecosystem that addresses key technical and manufacturing challenges throughout the entire development and production process.

Komax is enabling a practical transition to aluminum wiring
During Electronica China 2026, Komax was invited as a core ecosystem partner by TE Connectivity and demonstrated its latest automation solutions for aluminum wire processing, including applications with fully integrated ultrasonic welding technology. The showcased production concepts highlighted how manufacturers can transition to aluminum conductors with minimal modifications to existing production lines, reducing investment requirements while maintaining high production efficiency.

At the TE Connectivity booth, Komax presented the Alpha 550 platform, demonstrating efficient and highly automated processing of aluminum wires. The live demonstrations illustrated how modern automation technologies can support stable, repeatable, and scalable production processes, helping manufacturers confidently adopt aluminum-based wiring solutions in future vehicle programs.

Supporting lightweight vehicles and carbon reduction
The comprehensive aluminum-for-copper substitution approach offers significant benefits for vehicle manufacturers. The new solutions can reduce the weight of connection components by up to 60%, contributing to an overall vehicle weight reduction of more than six kilograms. Lower vehicle weight can improve energy efficiency and support the growing demand for sustainable mobility solutions. At the same time, reduced copper consumption helps alleviate pressure on critical raw material supply chains.

The partners estimate that widespread adoption of aluminum wiring technologies across China’s automotive industry could lead to substantial annual carbon emission reductions, making a meaningful contribution to the sector’s efforts to achieve the country’s “Dual Carbon” objectives.

Strengthening collaboration for future mobility
The strategic cooperation agreement reflects a shared commitment to innovation, sustainability, and industrial collaboration. By combining expertise in materials science, connection technologies, manufacturing automation, and engineering validation, the four companies aim to accelerate the commercialization of aluminum wiring solutions and unlock new opportunities for the next generation of electric vehicles.

For Komax, the partnership further strengthens its role as a technology leader in wire processing automation and demonstrates its commitment to supporting customers with innovative solutions that improve efficiency, reduce environmental impact, and enable future-ready manufacturing.

As the collaboration progresses, the partners will continue to validate, optimize, and expand aluminum-for-copper applications across a growing range of vehicle platforms and production scenarios, helping advance sustainable mobility and supporting the long-term transformation of the global automotive industry.