Gentherm Incorporated (‘Gentherm’) is the global market leader of thermal management and pneumatic comfort technologies for the automotive industry and a leader in medical patient temperature management.
Automotive products include variable temperature Climate Control Seats, heated interior systems (including heated seats, steering wheels, armrests, and other components), battery performance solutions, cable systems, lumbar and massage comfort solutions, fuel management valve systems, and other...
Gentherm Incorporated (‘Gentherm’) is the global market leader of thermal management and pneumatic comfort technologies for the automotive industry and a leader in medical patient temperature management.
Automotive products include variable temperature Climate Control Seats, heated interior systems (including heated seats, steering wheels, armrests, and other components), battery performance solutions, cable systems, lumbar and massage comfort solutions, fuel management valve systems, and other valve systems for brake and engine systems, as well as other electronic devices.
The company's automotive products can be found on light vehicles manufactured by nearly all the major original equipment manufacturers (‘OEMs’) operating in North America and Europe, and several major OEMs in Asia. The company operates in locations aligned with its major customers’ product strategies to provide locally enhanced design, integration, and production capabilities. Medical products include patient temperature management systems. The company's medical products can be found in hospitals throughout the world, primarily in the U.S., China, Germany, and Brazil.
Segments
The company has two reportable segments: Automotive and Medical.
Automotive
The Automotive reporting segment comprises the results from the company’s global automotive businesses, including the design, development, manufacturing, and sales of automotive climate and comfort systems, cable technology, battery performance solutions, valve systems, and electronic and software solutions.
Climate and comfort systems include seat heaters, blowers, and thermoelectric devices for variable temperature control in seats, as well as steering wheel heaters designed to provide individualized thermal comfort to automobile passengers, pneumatic lumbar and massage comfort solutions, and integrated electronic components, such as electronic control units that utilize the company’s proprietary electronics technology and software. Pneumatic lumbar and massage comfort solutions include lumbar support, side bolster adjustment, multi-contour seats, and massage systems. Other climate and comfort systems include neck and shoulder conditioners and climate control systems for door panels and armrests.
Automotive cable technology includes ready-made individual cables and ready-to-install cable networks used to connect components to power sources.
Battery performance solutions consist of cell connecting devices and battery cable technologies used for various types of batteries, as well as thermal management products for heating or cooling 12 volts, 48 volts, and high voltage batteries and battery modules.
Valve systems consist of applications that offer solutions in fuel management, ranging from the design of tank ventilation and filling functions to closed-coupled fuel regulation. The modular systems allow for customizable adaptations. Valve systems also include other valves for brake and engine systems.
Electronic and software systems include electronic control units for climate and comfort systems, electronic control units for memory seat modules, and other devices.
Medical
The Medical reporting segment comprises the results from the patient temperature management business in the medical industry.
Patient temperature management includes temperature management systems across multiple product categories addressing the needs of hyper-hypothermia therapy in intensive care, normothermia in surgical procedures, and additional warming/cooling therapies utilized in acute and chronic care departments, as well as non-hospital facilities.
Business Strategy
Globally, the company develops, manufactures, and delivers differentiated solutions that make meaningful differences in everyday life by improving health, wellness, comfort and energy efficiency.
The company's business strategy consists of various major pillars, such as extending technology leadership, focused growth, and delivering financial excellence.
Core Technologies
Resistive Heaters
Resistive heater technologies comprise wire, carbon fiber, or positive thermal coefficient (‘PTC’) heating elements that quickly and effectively deliver heat to people and objects. Wire heating elements are designed from stainless steel, copper, or the company’s proprietary carbon fiber woven lattice technology called Carbotex based on the specifications for a particular product application. Resistive heaters have multiple automotive applications, including seat heating, steering wheel heating, interior panel heating, and battery heating.
Thermoelectric Technologies
The company utilizes its internally developed, advanced thermoelectric device technology (‘TED’) in various applications, such as efficiently heating and cooling vehicle occupants and precisely controlling the temperature of 48V batteries. A TED is a solid-state circuit that has the capability to produce both hot and cold temperature conditions by use of the Peltier effect. The advantages of advanced TED over conventional compressed gas systems include a reduced environmental impact and less complexity, as they have no moving parts and are compact and lightweight. The company’s work on this technology has yielded improvements in areas of functionality, efficiency, durability, and performance.
Air Moving Devices
The company’s highly durable and quiet air moving devices, some of which include its proprietary blower and fan designs, are essential to all of its products that require air movement. The company has a broad portfolio of these products that are tailored to various automotive applications, including seat ventilation and electric vehicle battery cooling.
Pneumatic
Pneumatic lumbar and massage comfort solutions operate by inflation and deflation of air bladders to achieve the desired comfort effect. The company’s products' differentiation is that its underlying valve technology for regulating air flow is based on shape memory alloy valves (‘SMA’). The company has developed actuators and valves with SMA technology that replace heavy, noisy, and less accurate solenoid valves. The company’s control elements produce precise mechanical forces and movements using the finest wires made of memory metals, without the labor-intensive use of additional sensors.
Electronics
The electronics in the company’s climate and comfort solutions are primarily designed and manufactured by it. The company also supplies value-added electronic products to third parties for adjacent areas within the automotive interior. In addition, the company manufactures and supplies electronic control units for memory seat modules that include electric motor position sensing technology. This technology further applies to other automotive products requiring fine motor controls.
Valve Technology
Designed and developed with the company’s extensive expertise in advanced injection molding, its passive and active valves are mechanical, spring-loaded, or use solenoids for actuation, and pneumatic, as well as the innovative Shape Memory Alloy (‘SMA’) technology to actuate to control a variety of critical applications, including fuel management, motor engine flap control, and brake vacuum support.
Solutions
ComfortScale
ComfortScale is the company’s next-generation proprietary combined thermal, lumbar, and massage system. The flexible design provides the ability to be foam and seat agnostic and can run across all OEMs and Seat Tier 1’s. The scalable and modular system can be designed from lumbar only to fully contented pneumatic and thermal solutions. ComfortScale is expected to drive significant performance improvement and meaningful reduction in complexity. The company secured its first ComfortScale award on General Motor's future full-size truck platform that includes the Chevrolet Silverado and the GMC Sierra.
ClimateSense
ClimateSense is an integrated comfort system designed to create a personalized microclimate for passengers using localized convective, conductive, and radiative heating and cooling products. Using automatic regulation technology in combination with the company’s unique occupant-centric control algorithm, ClimateSense offers the ability to personalize and improve overall occupant thermal comfort, improve time to comfort with (all-electric) pre-conditioning, provide comfort with less energy consumption, thereby lowering greenhouse gas emissions by conventional internal combustion and hybrid powertrains, and extend range for electrified powertrains through a reduction in central heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system usage. The company’s first production vehicle awards for its ClimateSense technology have launched on the Cadillac Escalade IQ and the Cadillac CELESTIQ.
WellSense
In January 2024, the company introduced WellSense, a software-defined consumer experience that delivers customized in-cabin comfort sensations that promote wellness and well-being. The technology the company is developing leverages science-based physiology research as the foundation for proprietary software that orchestrates heating, cooling, lumbar, and massage comfort effectors. WellSense delivers enhanced wellness and well-being sensations in product offerings suitable for software-defined vehicles and over-the-air feature upgrades for all vehicle configurations. The WellSense software development kit can be combined with additional vehicle features like in-cabin audio, visual, and aromatic stimulation to deliver unique sensations that go beyond traditional comfort regulation to help promote individual wellness and well-being.
Products
Climate & Comfort Solutions – Climate Controlled Seats (CCS)
CCS
The company offers a range of CCS products utilizing proprietary technologies for regulating temperature and enhancing the comfort of vehicle passengers. The company’s CCS Vent products move air through the seat to provide conditioning. The company’s CCS Active products utilize TEDs to heat and cool air used to condition the seat. The conditioning air circulates by one of the company’s specially designed air moving devices through an air distribution system installed in the seat cushion and seat back, so that the seat surface can be heated, ventilated, or cooled. Each seat has individual electronic controls to adjust the level of heating, ventilating, or cooling. The company’s CCS products improve comfort compared with conventional vehicle cabin air conditioners by focusing heating and cooling directly on the passenger through the seat.
By offering different models of the CCS product, the company’s customers have the opportunity to purchase a wider range of climate control products at different price points. Sales of CCS products, primarily CCS Vent products, contributed 32% to the company’s total product revenues for the year ended December 31, 2024.
CCS Heat
Heated seats, based on the company’s resistive heater core technology, are seamlessly integrated into automotive seat designs and are constructed using materials that offer the best capacity, installation characteristics, and durability. The company’s design and manufacturing capabilities allow customers to choose among a variety of resistive heater materials based on their individual vehicle specifications. Sales of CCS Heat products contributed 20% to the company’s total product revenues for the year ended December 31, 2024.
CCS Neck Conditioner
Intelligent neck conditioning systems ventilate warm or cabin temperature air directly onto the passenger’s neck and shoulder area. The system combines electronics, air moving device technologies, and a PTC heating element into a compact, integrated headrest design that can be adjusted to suit the body size of the passenger.
Climate & Comfort Solutions – Climate Controlled Interior (CCI)
CCI Steering Wheel Heat
Heated steering wheels deliver heating comfort to automobile drivers through resistive elements. This product can be applied to both leather and wood steering wheels and is a solution for drivers in cold and mild weather climates.
CCI Automotive Heated Interior
The company’s thermally conductive or radiative surfaces, such as door panel armrests and center console armrest products, are powered by the company’s core technologies. The system is thermally managed by a heating control system, which can be discretely located in the door panel or seat of the vehicle. Heated door panels and armrests complement the company’s climate-controlled seat and steering wheel products and provide a superior level of thermal comfort to the driving experience.
Climate & Comfort Solutions – Pneumatic Controlled Seats (PCS)
The company’s seat ergonomics system consists primarily of pneumatic lifting elements (air bladders), which are mounted under the surface of the seat cushion and back. Through the cyclical inflation and deflation of the lifting elements, the contour of the seat cushion is selectively modified. The lifting elements are controlled by valves, utilizing software that can be enabled in modes by the vehicle occupant in accordance with their preferences and specific body types to provide lumbar and massage comfort solutions.
The company’s breakthrough and award-winning technology, Puls.A, uses precision micro air pressure bursts to deliver a soothing, pulsating massage that lets drivers and passengers enjoy deep, personal relaxation on every trip. This is entering OEM production and further accelerates the evolution of the vehicle comfort experience.
Climate & Comfort Solutions – Electronics Solutions
Memory Seat Modules
The company has developed a unique way to control certain electrical motors in a vehicle. The company’s Intelligent Positioning System (IPS) product suite utilizes proprietary software to determine the position of a power seat and control the memory seat module.
PilotSense Hands-On Detection
All vehicles manufactured with autonomous driving level 2 or higher capabilities are required to ensure that the driver stays in control of the vehicle during operation. To accomplish this task, the company developed PilotSense – a sensor integrated into the steering wheel that monitors whether the driver’s hands are maintaining contact with the steering wheel. This product is available for both heated and non-heated steering wheels.
Battery Performance Solutions
Cell Connecting Technology
Cell connecting technology provides secure connections between advanced automotive batteries to transmit a continuous flow of information about battery temperature and cell voltage during the charging and discharging process to monitor battery system performance. The company has developed a range of cell connecting system products, including flexible foil cell connecting boards that offer improved packaging, weight, and functionality. The company offers these products in a variety of materials to cover customers’ requirements.
Thermoelectric Battery Thermal Management
Thermal management is critically important for the long-term operation of advanced automotive batteries. The expansion of electrified vehicle applications, such as electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids, and mild hybrids, have increased the demand for battery thermal management (‘BTM’) systems that enable wider operating temperature ranges, enhanced driving range, and prolonged life of the battery. The company’s BTM system can provide precision battery cooling of 48-volt mild hybrid systems on pack or cell-level using patented TED technology. The BTM system maintains the temperature of the lithium-ion battery or other advanced chemistry battery within an acceptable temperature range without the use of chilled liquids or refrigerant loops, making it a lightweight, highly scalable, compact solution ideal for automotive applications. The company’s proprietary BTM system is compact and energy-efficient, resulting in minimal energy usage, which is important for an electrified vehicle.
Aside from battery cooling, the company’s BTM portfolio includes battery heating applications. Based on the company’s proprietary technology, it offers solutions to its customers that enable efficient heating of lithium-ion batteries for electrified vehicles.
Automotive Cable Technology
The company manufactures cable systems used to connect automotive components to power sources. The cable systems are an important element in the production of many of the company’s products and form a significant component in how it generates value for its customers by being an efficient, low-cost, and high-quality manufacturer. The company offers cable systems as integrated parts of its products and also as stand-alone components for other automotive applications, such as oxygen sensors. The company’s cable systems business includes both ready-made individual cables and ready-to-install cable networks.
Valve Systems
The company has deep expertise in valve management, providing intelligent solutions for applications in engine systems, brake systems, and fuel management, such as actuators, thermal management valves, crank case ventilation valves, non-return valves, mechanical switching valves, servo assistance valves, fuel limit vent valves, roll over valves, and drain valves. The company has many years of experience in precision injection molding and valve technology, which includes innovative technologies, such as the SMA actuating elements. Due to the company’s modular systems, it implements customized adaptations at attractive costs and is prepared to address future global regulatory emissions requirements.
Patient Temperature Management System
The company provides healthcare professionals with superior temperature management solutions and clinical expertise that improve patient outcomes, increase the standard of care, and enhance patient satisfaction. The company provides a full portfolio of patient temperature management systems that utilizes air, water, and resistive technologies across multiple product categories addressing the needs of hyper-hypothermia therapy in intensive care, normothermia in surgical procedures, and additional warming/cooling therapies utilized in acute and chronic care departments, as well as non-hospital facilities. The company’s core brands include Blanketrol/Kool-Kit/Maxi-Therm Lite hyper-hypothermia system, WarmAir/FilteredFlo convective warming system, Astopad resistive patient warming system (leveraging technology used in the company’s automotive products), Electri-Cool/Micro-Temp localized cooling/warming systems, Astotherm/Astoflo IV fluid and blood warming systems, and Hemotherm cardiovascular cooling/warming system that delivers precise blood temperature control during cardiopulmonary bypass and other related cardiovascular procedures.
Automotive Customers
The company’s Automotive segment customers primarily include light vehicle OEMs and Tier 1s. The company also directly supplies CCS products to aftermarket distributors and installers.
The company’s automotive marketing is directed primarily at the OEMs and their Tier 1s and focuses on the enhanced value consumers attribute to vehicles with thermal and pneumatic lumbar and massage comfort solutions. In many cases, the OEMs direct the company to work with their suppliers, primarily their Tier 1s, to integrate its products into the vehicle’s seat or interior design.
The volume of products the company sells is significantly affected by global and regional automotive production levels and the general business conditions in the automotive industry. The company’s product revenues are generally based upon purchase orders issued by its customers, with updated production schedules for volume adjustments.
For 2024, the company’s revenues from sales to its two largest customers, Lear Corporation (‘Lear’) and Adient plc (‘Adient’), represented 16% and 11% of its product revenues, respectively. Revenues from Lear and Adient represent sales of the company’s climate and comfort solutions. Lear is a direct competitor to the company as part of a vertical integration strategy. The loss of or significant reduction of business from Lear or Adient would likely have a material adverse impact on the company’s business, results of operations, and cash flows.
Proprietary Rights and Patents
As of December 31, 2024, the company held 426 issued patents, of which 214 were the U.S. patents and 212 were the non-U.S. patents.
Seasonality
The company’s principal operations are directly related to the automotive industry. Consequently, it has historically experienced seasonal fluctuations to the extent automotive vehicle production slows, such as in the summer months when many customer plants close for model year changeovers and in December when many customer plants close for the holidays.
Environmental and Regulatory Compliance
In the U.S., the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 (the ‘Safety Act’) regulates motor vehicle equipment that the company manufactures and sells, as well as vehicles.
History
The company was founded in 1991. The company was incorporated in 1991. It was formerly known as Amerigon Incorporated and changed its name to Gentherm Incorporated in 2012.
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