physics

Gentherm Incorporated

Gentherm Incorporated is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Gentherm Incorporated rather than just read about it. In short: Gentherm Incorporated, formerly Amerigon, is an American thermal management technologies company. Gentherm created the first thermoelectrically heated and cooled seat system for the automotive industry.

Key takeaways

Gentherm Incorporated belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Gentherm Incorporated to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Gentherm Incorporated from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Gentherm Incorporated, formerly Amerigon, is an American thermal management technologies company. Gentherm created the first thermoelectrically heated and cooled seat system for the automotive industry. Called the "Climate Control Seat" system, it was first adopted by the Ford Motor Company and introduced as an option on the model year 2000 Lincoln Navigator in 1999. Today it is available on more than 50 vehicles sold by Ford, General Motors, Toyota (Lexus), Kia, Hyundai, Nissan (Infiniti), Range Rover and Jaguar Land Rover. Currently, the company is a developer and marketer of thermal management technologies for heating and cooling and temperature control devices for a variety of industries. Gentherm is publicly traded on Nasdaq under the symbol THRM and is headquartered in Novi, MI. Gentherm's thermoelectric technologies are based on the Peltier Effect, the 1834 discovery that passing an electric current through a sandwich of two dissimilar metals will make them hot on one side and cold (the lack of heat) on the other.

History Since 2005, Gentherm has been partnering with BMW and Ford on a project that is backed by the U.S. Department of Energy focused on the development of an automotive thermoelectric generator (ATEG) that converts waste exhaust heat into electrical power based on the Seebeck Effect. A prototype of the ATEG was named one of the most promising innovations for 2012 by Car and Driver magazine. Amerigon, the precursor company to Gentherm, had been formed in 1991 by Lon E. Bell in Monrovia, California, focusing on automotive technologies and electric vehicles. In 1999, the company introduced the first thermoelectric Climate Control Seat (CCS) for the MY 2000 Lincoln Navigator, and in 2005, the company relocated from California to Northville, Michigan. In 2008, Amerigon acquired Comair Rotron Shanghai; in 2011, they acquired a majority stake in W.E.T. Automotive Systems, a manufacturer of thermal comfort products. Amerigon Incorporated officially changed its name to Gentherm Incorporated on June 13, 2012. The company's NASDAQ trading symbol changed from "ARGN" to "THRM" simultaneously. The rebranding reflected the company's focus on its thermal management technologies. In December 2014, the company said it would expand production capacity in Europe by opening a new manufacturing facility in Prilep, North Macedonia, employing up to 1,000 people. Gentherm has 30+ locations and 14,000+ employees in the following countries: China, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, North Macedonia, South Korea, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam.

Climate Control Seat As with the MY 2008 Lincoln MKZ, the climate controlled front seats, heated and cooled, are user-controlled by individual dash-mounted switches. Ambient cabin air was drawn into the system and either heated or cooled by a solid-state heat pump, using a thermo-electric device (TED) to convert electric current into the desired hot or cold thermal effect.

References

External links Official website Careers at Gentherm

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Gentherm Incorporated

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Gentherm Incorporated claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Gentherm Incorporated before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Gentherm Incorporated ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Gentherm Incorporated

In research: Gentherm Incorporated appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Gentherm Incorporated in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Gentherm Incorporated is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Auto parts suppliers of the United States, Companies based in Metro Detroit, Companies based in Michigan, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Gentherm Incorporated outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Gentherm Incorporated in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Gentherm Incorporated means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Gentherm Incorporated out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Gentherm Incorporated in simple terms?

Why does Gentherm Incorporated matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Gentherm Incorporated?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Gentherm Incorporated.