Automotive News Europe
2025 / 12 / 17

DeepDrive, an electric motor startup backed by BMW Group and Volkswagen Group, has brought the man who has scaled up production at Audi, Tesla and Lucid Motors out of retirement to help industrialize its product.

Munich-based DeepDrive, which is working with eight of the world’s 10 largest automakers on series applications, wants to start large scale production of its patented dual-rotor e-motor by 2028. To get there, the company has added longtime manufacturing executive Peter Hochholdinger as a senior advisor.

Hochholdinger has decades of experience in automotive manufacturing and industrial ramp-ups. He spent more than 20 years at Audi, managing production of high-volume models including the Audi A4, A5, and Q5, overseeing about 400,000 units per year. He then helped Tesla launch the Model X, followed by the Model 3. As vice president of manufacturing at Lucid, he spearheaded construction of the EV maker’s factory in Casa Grande, Arizona. After stints at rocket maker Relativity Space and Boeing, where he led manufacturing and safety operations within the company’s defense and space division, he retired and moved back to Germany.

Looking for a new challenge, Hochholdinger was lured to DeepDrive, where he was impressed by how the startup “engineered its product to scale it up,” he told Automotive News Europe.

 
Doug Buldoc & Lois Jones
 
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