30 million designs, in record time: MAHLE reinvents one of its most widely used components
- Customer
- MAHLE
- Industry
- Automotive
- Application
- HVAC radial blower design (aerodynamics, acoustics, packaging)
- Outcome · Product performance
- +15% energy efficiency
Overview
MAHLE engineers explored more than 30 million virtual designs with Neural Concept to turn a penguin-inspired idea into a new radial blower that is 15% more efficient, 4 dB quieter and suited to every vehicle class.
Challenge
Improving a mature component is the hardest kind of engineering, and the most valuable.
Across the automotive industry, engineering teams are under pressure to deliver high-performing, energy-efficient products at an ever faster pace. They must balance complex trade-offs against manufacturing constraints and tight timelines, while traditional design processes slow them down with long iteration cycles.
For MAHLE, the stakes were in its radial blower, the fan that moves air through a vehicle’s air-conditioning system. It belongs to a standardized family used across passenger cars and commercial vehicles, one of MAHLE’s most widely used components globally, so any gain spreads across entire vehicle portfolios. Electrification raises the bar: lower energy consumption, less noise, and a more compact footprint where space is at a premium.
Its engineers had a bold idea, drawn from the drag-reducing shape of a penguin’s fin. But turning biological inspiration into a high-performance industrial design takes a leap of faith and heavy engineering work. That’s where Neural Concept came in.
Solution
Engineers set the course. AI explored the design space.
Neural Concept’s Engineering AI copilots, tailored to MAHLE’s own data and processes, explored more than 30 million virtual blower designs in record time. MAHLE’s engineers set the performance goals, domain constraints and design parameters. The copilots instantly predicted real-world performance and proposed geometries that met or exceeded the specification.
Aerodynamics, noise and efficiency across millions of variants were all accessible in a single interface. Development moved from sequential, time-consuming iterations to a continuous, AI-assisted co-design process, guided by MAHLE’s engineers at every step.
“Through close collaboration with Neural Concept and the use of generative and predictive AI, MAHLE is succeeding in significantly accelerating innovation cycles in the development process, thus designing reliable, efficient, and sustainable thermal systems for the e-mobility of the future. AI-supported optimizations enable us to implement solutions that not only push technological boundaries but also significantly increase cost-effectiveness and sustainability.”
Impact
30M+Virtual designs explored in record time
+15%Energy efficiency
−4 dBQuieter compared to similar systems
Unveiled at Auto Shanghai 2025, the new blower creates a more compact, symmetrical air-conditioning unit, an edge in EVs where space is at a premium. It also cements MAHLE’s leadership on one of its most widely used components.
What’s next
MAHLE is set to establish processes to use AI-powered development across its engineering projects.