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Valeo Celebrates Its 100th Anniversary, Centennial Innovation, Unlimited Future

Publish Date: 2023.03.17

Founded in 1923, Valeo has celebrated its 100th anniversary this year. From a workshop outside Paris to a global leader in the field of sustainable travel, Valeo has been focusing on mobile travel for a century, constantly innovating, and continuously leading. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Group, Valeo China held a "Centennial • Qixin" communication meeting to review the company's centennial innovation process and look forward to the unlimited future of the Group and its development in China.

  

 法雷奥庆祝成立100周年 百年创新 无限未来

  

  Valeo China is committed to future mobile travel

  

  Valeo entered China in 1994 and has been developing in China for nearly 30 years. China is leading the transformation of mobile travel, and Valeo is a global leader in the rapidly developing automotive industry such as advanced driving assistance systems and electrification, and is at the core of these two major automotive transformations.

  

  Today, in terms of sales, number of employees, and number of research and development personnel, Valeo China has become the largest single country of the Valeo Group, with 33 factories, nearly 20000 employees, 13 research and development centers, and 4000 research and development personnel in China, committed to a more environmentally friendly, safer, and smarter future mobile travel.

  

  Over the past 30 years, Valeo has been steadily growing in China, and will continue to take root in China in the future, promoting the continuous development of business and innovative technology in China, and meeting the rapidly changing customer needs of China and the global market. Valeo will deploy more platform product development projects and forward-looking development projects in China, and set up a global technology center in Wuhan to provide software and hardware technical services to global customers. In the field of new mobile travel, the Valeo China Innovation and Travel Center landed in Beijing last year. In the future, Valeo will continue to expand its investment in China. For example, the Valeo wiper factory in Changshu will further expand its scale. Valeo will also deploy a new R&D center for the comfort and driving assistance systems business unit in Shanghai.

  

  Mr. Zhou Song, President of Valeo China, said, "Valeo Group has always placed China in an important development position, and has also committed to continue expanding investment in China, strengthening local research and development efforts and training of research and development talents, and working with ecological partners to build an unlimited future of mobile travel."

  

  法雷奥庆祝成立100周年 百年创新 无限未来

  

  Zhou Song, President of Valeo China; Image source: Valeo

  

  法雷奥庆祝成立100周年 百年创新 无限未来

  

  Gu Jianmin, Chief Technical Officer of Valeo China; Image source: Valeo

  

  Valeo's Centennial Innovation Course

  

  1923-1950: Valeo successfully takes root in France

  

  In 1923, the predecessor of Valeo, Soci é t é Anonyme Fran ç aise du Ferodo (SAFF), was founded and began producing the first batch of friction materials made in France in a small workshop in the Paris suburb of Saint Touan. At the beginning of the 20th century, SAFF became a major participant in the transformation of the automotive industry, and had already occupied a dominant position in the production market of brake pads and clutches before World War II. By the early 1950s, the number of employees had increased to 2500.

  

  1950-1980: Changes in progress

  

  The thirty years of prosperity after the war was a period of great vitality for automakers and component suppliers. In the early 1950s, SAFF took advantage of this boom to achieve significant innovation and expanded its business to all types of automotive electrical equipment, such as spark plugs, alternators, and starters, as well as ignition, lighting, and wiper systems.

  

  This strategy quickly paid off. After several acquisitions and taking advantage of its absolute dominance in the French automotive brake and clutch equipment supply market, SAFF opened a new challenge in the early 1960s: expanding into the international market. Initially developed in Europe, then expanded to Brazil, and ultimately spread throughout the world.

  

  On March 8, 1950, the German manufacturer Volkswagen launched a Volkswagen minivan equipped with windshield wipers and speakers produced by Valeo. Soon, it became a symbol of popular culture. In 1977, SAFF merged Cibi é, another leading enterprise in the field of automotive lighting, and Cibi é became a household name in the field of automotive headlamp design in South America.

  

  1980-2000: Valeo, becoming a global unified brand

  

  With the advent of the 1980s, SAFF's influence has spread throughout the world. By this time, the company, founded in 1923, had operated in 15 countries through more than 70 companies. At the annual shareholders' meeting held on May 28, 1980, the company adopted the name Valeo as a unified brand for global business.

  

  From its first entry into the Spanish market to its rise in Asia in the early 21st century, Valeo has gradually established itself as an international leader in the rapidly changing automotive market.

  

  2000-20023: From auto parts suppliers to global mobile travel participants

  

  In 2010, Jacques Aschenbroich, then Chairman and CEO of Valeo's Board of Directors, proposed that "reducing carbon dioxide emissions will be our driving force for growth in the next decade." Valeo accelerated its development in the field of sustainable travel.

  

  In 2004, Valeo Group further innovated in automotive electrification, becoming a pioneer in launching start-stop technology; In 2010, Valeo invested in all electric vehicles; In 2011, Valeo deployed the world's first automatic parking assist system, Park4U; In 2017, Valeo established Valeo.ai, the world's first artificial intelligence research center dedicated to automotive applications; In 2018, Valeo achieved the world's first breakthrough, showing its first autonomous vehicle on the streets of Paris; In 2021/2022, the first two L3 autonomous vehicle, Honda Legend and Mercedes Benz S-Class cars, which were approved to be manufactured in the world, were equipped with Valeo's LiDAR (laser radar technology) technology and were put on the market.

  

  法雷奥庆祝成立100周年 百年创新 无限未来

  

  Accelerate your progress towards an infinite future

  

  At the beginning of 2022, Valeo Group launched the Move Up program led by Group CEO Christophe P é rillat. This is a value creation strategy based on the general trend of sustainable development and green travel, including promoting electrification, accelerating the implementation of advanced assisted driving, reshaping the cabin experience, and global intelligent lighting.

  

  Today, Valeo's various businesses have reached global leading levels, and its technology is widely used in mobile travel and other fields: one out of every three new cars in the world uses Valeo's driving assistance technology, and one out of every three cars is equipped with Valeo's dioxygenated carbon emission reduction electrification solution. In addition, the solutions developed by Valeo are also applied to various new modes of travel, ranging from electric micro travel (bicycles, electric scooters, electric motorcycles, etc.) to various new modes of travel (unmanned taxis, unmanned distribution logistics vehicles, etc.). Valeo technology has also been extended beyond the automotive field, extending to infrastructure and new services, including traffic management, pedestrian safety, intelligent lighting in public places, and electric vehicle charging, Even data center cooling.

  

  For more information on the development history of Valeo Group, please check the official website link: https://www.valeo.com/cn/ History of Valeo/

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