Zytek Automotive > About Us

When Zytek was founded in 1981 the company’s initial focus was to provide engine management systems to motorsport, with Zytek supplying the first fully electronic engine management system to be seen in Formula One, in the Toleman- Hart car driven by a young Ayrton Senna. Zytek’s motorsport success led to a successful road car business, initially using its engine management knowledge to power new generation of ultra high-power supercars such as the Jaguar XJ220. Soon Zytek was working with some of the leading names in performance motoring, including Aston Martin, Jaguar, Rolls-Royce and Bentley. Today Zytek engine control technology is running on the high performance V10 Dodge Viper.
	In the mid 1990s Zytek began the development of what was to become the highest power-density electric vehicle drivetrain available at the time. Zytek’s technology was ideally suited to the smart fortwo which became the focus of Zytek’s electric vehicle research and development. Zytek’s expertise in this arena was rewarded in 1999 when awarded a $30M development programme by General Motors, firmly establishing the company as one of the world’s leading integrators of electric and hybrid-electric drive systems.
In 2006 Zytek’s award-winning innovative drivetrain technology was used to convert an initial 100 smart fortwos to fully electric versions with a 55KW drivetrain. These vehicles took part in a market trial by selected British customers as lease vehicles from 2007 to 2009. The success of the UK trials led to the smart 451 electric drive rolling off the production line from Oct 2009, with 1,500 expected to be complete by April 2011. The smart electric drives are produced at a dedicated Zytek facility at the smart fortwo assembly plant in Hambach, France.
	Zytek’s outstanding capability came to the notice of Motorola in 2000, procuring 19% of the Zytek Group. In 2006 this passed to Continental AG who purchased all of Motorola’s automotive divisions. Continental soon raised their stockholding to the current level of 50% in Zytek Automotive. Continental is a global automotive engineering company, with around 134,000 employees and a turnover of €25 billion. Continental’s product portfolio and engineering skills perfectly compliment those of Zytek Automotive and the company looks forward to another period of sustained growth.