Foreign-funded enterprises play an indispensable role in the development of China’s automobile industry.
Since the establishment of Shanghai Volkswagen Automobile Co., Ltd. in 1984, it marks the official entry of foreign-funded automobile enterprises into the Chinese market.
Since then, with the rise of Chinese independent automobile enterprises, foreign-funded enterprises have gradually become an important part of China’s automobile innovation ecology.
In this process, foreign Tier 1 suppliers not only participated in the production of the Chinese market, but also gradually turned to R & D and innovation in China.
Valeo is an important member of them.
On April 18, 2024, the 30th anniversary celebration of Valeo China’s “Thirty Unbounded, Zhiqi Future” was held in Jingzhou, its first landing city in China.
Photo: Valeo, 30 years of Spring and Autumn, Valeo is a witness to the rapid development of China’s automobile industry and one of the participants.
Now in the era of new energy vehicles, Valeo has also started a new journey.
After 30 years of ups and downs, in 1994, the “Automobile Industry Policy” was formally promulgated, which regulated the development direction of the automobile industry and laid the foundation for the subsequent market pattern and industrial upgrading.
Valeo’s 30 years of development in China also began in 1994, when Valeo set up its first factory in China in Shacheng District, Jingzhou City, bringing the automotive air-conditioning business to China.
With the gradual opening of China’s auto market, Valeo has taken an important step into the Chinese market.
In the face of the new market environment and consumer demand, Valeo has gradually established its own production base and sales network in China through continuous business expansion.
In the first decade from 1994 to 2003, Valeo set up its first factories in Wenling, Wuhan, Nanjing, Shanghai and other cities, comprehensively introducing Valeo’s wiper, air conditioning, lighting, electrical system, transmission system and other businesses.
started the course of development in China.
Valeo, which is new to China, faces many challenges.
How to adapt to the uniqueness of the Chinese market, how to solve the differences with international standards, and how to establish cooperation with local enterprises are all problems that Valeo and other foreign suppliers need to solve.
With continuous exploration and practice, Valeo began to further integrate into China’s automobile ecosystem from 2004 to 2013.
At this stage, Valeo has not only further expanded its production base and set up factories in Changchun, Shenzhen, Foshan, Wuhu, Shenyang and Tianjin, but also expanded the scale of local R & D.
it has successively set up R & D centers in Wuhan, Shanghai and Shenzhen, and established Valeo five-axis school to strengthen the training of localized talents and further implement the principle of “taking root in China and serving China”.
From 2014 to the present, China’s automobile industry has started subversive innovation and the reconstruction of industrial structure, relying on scientific and technological innovation to achieve a great-leap-forward breakthrough.
With the rapid development of new energy vehicles and intelligent network connected vehicles, China has begun to lead the reform of mobile travel.
Zhou Song, president of Valeo China, lamented: “even in the past three years, the Chinese auto market has undergone earth-shaking changes.
” Photo source: Valeo, there are mainly the following points: 1.
The rise of China’s own brands.
In 2023, the market share of Chinese brand passenger cars continued to rise, with a total sales of 14.
596 million vehicles, an increase of 24.
1% over the same period last year, with an annual market share of 56%.
It continued to grow in the first quarter of this year. , 2. The penetration rate of new energy vehicles has increased rapidly.
At present, it has exceeded 35%, close to 40%. , 3. Chinese mainframe factories, and even international mainframe factories, begin to go deeper and deeper into the skills and knowledge systems once mastered by suppliers, and carry out prospective self-research in order to compete differently with their competitors.
Chinese suppliers are gradually rising, not only focusing on Chinese customers, but also making more and more achievements in international customers.
Both international car factories and local brands in China are actively going out to sea.
More and more talents from other industries have joined the automotive industry, especially in software and artificial intelligence, making the technology and product research and development of the automotive industry reach a new stage.
Facing the opportunities and challenges of the times, Valeo further strengthens local R & D investment, provides customers with products that meet the needs of the Chinese market, and is more involved in the group’s platform product development projects and forward-looking development projects.
the results of innovation have benefited the whole world, truly realizing the transformation from “made in China” to “made in China”.
From “made in China” to “made in China”, when Valeo entered the Chinese market 30 years ago, it mainly used China’s low-cost labor for production, that is, the “made in China” model.
At that time, most of the foreign-funded enterprises entering China were in this mode.
However, with the leading position of China’s smart electric vehicle industry, the layout and business proportion of foreign enterprises in China have changed, not only in the production level, but also in the areas of R & D and innovation.
Strengthening local R & D centers and building local R & D teams are essential parts.
In 2021, Valeo expanded its software research and development center in Wuhan, making it one of the largest research and development centers in the world.
In 2022, Valeo set up an innovation and travel center in Beijing to explore smart travel solutions with partners in the new mobile travel field.
In 2023, the third phase of Valeo comfort and driving Assistance system Wuhan R & D Center and Shanghai R & D Center were unveiled one after another, and Valeo (Shenzhen) Intelligent Manufacturing Center was completed.
Now, the Jingzhou Valeo comfort and driving assistance test base has been unveiled, further strengthening Valeo’s local manufacturing and R & D capabilities in the field of intelligent driving.
In addition, Valeo actively cooperates with customers, well-known academic institutions, innovative technology enterprises and universities, and has successively established joint laboratories with Shanghai Jiaotong University and Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and established R & D cooperation with a number of domestic enterprises.
Through our investment in R & D, we have realized the transformation from “made in China” to “made in China”.
Many innovative technologies are also “created” to be close to the needs of Chinese customers.
” Zhou Song pointed out.
According to reports, more than 50% of Valeo’s China business orders come from Chinese mainframe factory customers.
Customers cover traditional automobile enterprises and new power car manufacturers, and Valeo provides support to customers in electrification, intelligent driving, software-defined cars and Chinese brands going out to sea.
Over the past decade, Valeo China has successfully transformed into a research and development model with China, launching many innovative products in areas such as assisted driving and electrification, and some important products have been developed in China for use by Chinese car companies and even global platforms.
De Valeo is further integrated into China’s automobile industry ecosystem and becomes one of the important participants.
Today, Valeo China has become the largest single market country of Valeo in terms of sales, employees and R & D personnel, with 35 production bases in China, about 18000 employees, 14 R & D centers and more than 4500 R & D personnel.
In 2023, Valeo achieved sales of 22 billion euros, of which Valeo’s total sales in China reached 30 billion yuan, accounting for 17% of the group’s total sales.
Zhou Song said: “over the past 30 years, we have continued to dig deep into the Chinese market, and our business in China has undergone a transformation from ‘made in Made in China’ to ‘made in China’.
It has not only witnessed and participated in the rapid development of China’s automotive industry, but also become an important part of China’s automotive innovation ecosystem.
In the future, we will continue to bring more innovative products and technologies to Chinese and global customers under the principle of taking root in China and serving China.
” It is worth noting that in recent years, the pace of Chinese cars going out to sea has accelerated, and Valeo, as a global supplier, can also provide various support to Chinese mainframe factories for the development of China’s own brands going out to sea and internationalization.
Zhou Song said frankly that going out to sea is not a new challenge for Valeo.
Valeo has set up R & D, production and testing bases in Europe, the United States, Southeast Asia and the Middle East to understand the needs of customers in various countries and provide products and technologies that meet the requirements of relevant regulations.
, boundlessness and the future, “Thirty Unbounds is an interpretation of Valeo’s spirit of continuous transformation and innovation over the past three decades, and it is also a microcosm of the vigorous development of China’s automobile industry into the future.
Taking advantage of the future is not only the grand cause of Farao’s firm strategy and technological innovation in China, but also the future prospect of mobile travel reform.
” Zhou Song explained the theme of the event in this way.
Another highlight of the 30th anniversary celebration is the launch of Valeo comfort and driving assistance system Jingzhou vehicle test base.
Photo source: Valeo, it is reported that Valeo cooperated with Jingzhou Economic Development District Government to transform and upgrade the old runway, idle office facilities and vehicle conversion workshop of the original airport to build it into an advanced driving test base with international standards that can meet the needs of various road conditions.
The base is also the first advanced driving test base built by Valeo in China.
Facing the future, Valeo is strengthening its competitiveness in the field of intelligence and electrification through continuous technological innovation and strategic layout.
On February 25th, 2022, Valeo launched the “Move Up” Endeavour Plan, which includes four aspects: accelerating electrification, accelerating the application of advanced auxiliary driving systems, reshaping the cabin experience and global intelligent lighting.
The “Move Up” strategy was not launched in a hurry.
In fact, as early as 2010, Valeo put forward the strategic plan of carbon dioxide energy conservation and emission reduction and the development of intuitive driving technology, and had a forward-looking understanding of the changes in the automobile market.
The “Move Up” strategy can be regarded as a supplement and development in the previous two strategic directions.
At present, Valeo’s “Move Up” strategy has achieved remarkable results.
According to the financial report, Valeo orders totaled 34.
9 billion euros in 2023, meeting Valeo’s growth expectations.
Sales for the whole year were 22.
044 billion euros, an adjusted increase of 11% over the same period last year Exceed the growth rate of global automobile production by 3 percentage point.
It is reported that in 2023, one out of every three new cars in the world will adopt Valeo’s thermal management and electrification solution, and one out of every three cars will be equipped with Valeo Advanced driving Assistance system solution.
Zhou Song revealed that in the past 18 months, the order of Valeo’s advanced intelligent driving system was three times that of the same period, and more than 60% of the orders of the electrification division came from new energy vehicles.
It is worth noting that Valeo has also strengthened its corresponding software capabilities for the above major business areas, and has developed separate products.
From the perspective of software-defined automobile, the traditional automobile supply chain model will also change to the service provision mode based on SOA architecture, and the supply chain enterprises that can provide software and hardware solutions will have more advantages.
Take Valeo’s comfort and driving assistance department as an example, in terms of hardware, Valeo can provide a variety of sensors, including cameras, ultrasonic radar, millimeter wave radar, lidar, etc.
in terms of software, Valeo can provide complete software systems, domain controllers, driver monitoring systems and intelligent networking systems.
Thanks to a full range of software and hardware service capabilities, Valeo has built a huge cooperative ecology.
During this celebration, many senior executives from Chery, Changan, Dongfeng, Selis and other car companies showed up on the platform, including Mercedes-Benz E with Valeo automatic parking system and Geely smart Wizard # 3 with Valeo Intelligent Safety 360.
a comprehensive functional display was carried out in the Jingzhou vehicle test base.
Photo source: Valeo, looking back over the past 30 years, Valeo, as an established auto parts company in the world, has actively participated in the development of China’s auto industry, and now the competition in the auto industry will only be more exciting.
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