Q: What are the key technology areas for Valeo, and how are you moving to tap the opportunities from them?
As a technology company, as a tier one supplier, we are driven by two main revolutions: Electrification, and software development for vehicles. These are really the big trends. And they are, let’s say, really driving the growth of the innovation and the solutions that we provide.
Electrification for us is about two main things. The first one is about providing the motor, electronics, onboard charger, DC-DC converter, inverter, the complete propulsion system that are necessary to propel either a PHEV or, most of the time now, battery electric vehicles. So this is a big trend of the activities that we’re doing.
The second one, which is absolutely crucial for Valeo, and for the auto industry, is about the autonomy. and finally the thermal management of the car, because it’s really how you can be, let’s say, differentiated. How you have designed a clear strategy of maintaining the temperature of the battery cells in varied charging and climate conditions.
Q: Thermal management in tropical climates like that of India or the Middle East can be a totally different ballgame from the conditions in Europe.
Absolutely. So, maintaining and retrieving heat efficiently becomes very crucial. In the internal combustion engine architectures, you had heat coming out of the car itself. So it was kind of a free heat, which by combining many loops of refrigerant, etc, you were able to use this more or less free heat. This is not possible for a battery electric vehicle because the heat is not generated. So, you have to make sure you are capable of capturing the energy once the electron goes out of the battery. It has to be cleverly done because you have only one chance to use it. We have designed strategies and software to maintain the temperature or to get the right fluid circulation around the battery, inside the vehicle, and also around the motor.
In all of these, there is one word that you have, and that is Heat Bulb, which is exactly this system that can help you develop this complex system of having both loops of refrigerant, and the second loop of cooling. Valeo is one of the leading players in that field. What we are doing is something that is hardware wise, as much as possible in terms of compactness, so the OEM can put it more or less where it wants, as long as it’s reducing the weight and using many and complex fluid circulation within the cars.
All of them are important at the hardware level, plus the strategies that I mentioned at the software level. For example, sometimes, if you manage to do it, you can derate the functioning of the electronics. So in the inverter, which is piloting the currents of the motors. you can degrade the performance purposefully in a situation like when you don’t need high power. So, if you do that, you can derate the electronics. If you do that, the heat will come within the box of the inverter. You can use this heat, for instance, to heat the cabin. So, those are the kinds of strategies that we are thinking about. And this is what we have presented as a strategy of an optimisation tool that is for the benefit of the car manufacturers.
Again, electrification is about the electronics, the motors, how you think about the hardware to make it as efficient as possible, and less dependent on specific materials such as rare earth. We also have been developing motors without rare earth.
Q: I was coming to that. Though it’s tailpipe emission-free, the electrification megatrend also has an environmental impact in terms of mining materials required for the battery, and the motor. Have you come up with any technology solutions to minimise this impact, before the EV industry achieves the critical scale?
I completely agree with you. And this comes starting from the design. So all the more we know about the new technologies, etc, we have to take that into account – design of our products and components. An example is the rare earth-free motor that we have been designing with Renault, which is scheduled for production in 2026-27. We would provide a very powerful motor, which in terms of efficiency would be about the same as a PMSM (Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor). I cannot discuss much about the performance right now, but it would probably be state-of-the-art at the time of its launch.
Second part of it is really about what you mentioned, the materials that we use, and this is what at Valeo we have called the 4R strategy. ‘4R’ stands for recycle, reuse, repair, remanufacture. All of them are exactly about what you said, how, once the materials have been extracted for the use of batteries for the use of mechanics, mechatronics motors, etc.,how can I make sure that the lifecycle will not stop at the end of the life of the car, but can be repaired, can be reused. And this is a very, very enthusiastic path that engineering, in the auto industry has been on now. We are trying to augment as much as possible those strategies. For instance, with recycling, as you know, we are pushing more and more towards having the same functions with less materials with less weight, and also with a carbon footprint that is reduced because we are using recycled material.
Our latest generation of wipers is an example. By using natural biosourced and recyclable materials, we have been able to reduce the carbon footprint of the blade by 61%. Another example is the redesign of the lighting function. By removing a part of the boxes that are needed, let’s say within the system, and by using other kinds of materials such as composite, we could reduce the weight more or less by 50%, and the lifecycle carbon footprint of this part by more or less 40%.
Q: How significant is ADAS or Autonomous Driving in Valeo’s technology roadmap?
It really is the second pillar, but just before that, about electrification, the last point is that we don’t stop at cars. We are talking about mobility and especially in India, we are pretty committed to developing greener electrification of the mobility, whatever mobility is, so this is why we have been focusing on developing motors and systems for two-wheelers, three-wheelers, and small four-wheelers. And all of them are a part of what we’re developing either for last mile deliveries or for smart transportation — completely electrified. So it’s part of the things that we see as first very relevant in the different kinds of countries where it’s not only about big BEVs. It’s really adapted to each and every use case.
Q: How crucial is India for Valeo as an engineering or a technology development base?
We see India as a very great country and market for mobility, because it’s not only about BEVs, it’s all those new mobilities which have to be electrified. Secondly, for engineering, India is absolutely critical for Valeo. We have, especially in Chennai, a very significant part of our engineering, in all competencies of Valeo. By that I mean engineering in hardware, in electronics, in software, in cybersecurity, in materials. So, everything is being handled with more than 4000 people. We also have opened a centre in Bengaluru, as you know, to expand and extend especially in computer vision activities. So, what I mean, we consider ourselves as very lucky to have talented people that we keep expanding actually in India right now,
Q: How many such global centres does Valeo have?
India will be one of the three main engineering bases of Valeo.
Q: Is the Chennai centre a CoE for any particular technology or solution?
Yeah, it’s a centre of excellence for electronics, for mechanics, CAD design, and for software development, and cybersecurity. We have two or three main centres worldwide and then we have a transversal governance that is linking the competence and talents of all of these and making sure that we are training and reskilling gradually.
Q: Some, including the CTO of a major luxury vehicle OEM, say that the Autonomous Driving trend has not advanced at the expected pace, while digitalisation / Connected Vehicle tech has outpaced expectations. What is your view?
I would totally agree about the digitalisation pace. Generative AI, it’s going to explode in every part of the way we design, the way we expend and we serve those very powerful software. So not only AI but also generative AI, will come and it will transform the way we perceive things. So this is definitely one that maybe was not expected a few months ago. And it’s also a way for us to stay very modest about the projection. So that’s why I’m trying to be cautious.
For ADAS, there is a mix of two topics, the first one is about ADAS itself and then you have the robot taxi (autonomous car) development. As far as ADAS is concerned, Levels 1, 2, 2+, and maybe Level 3, we see accelerating everywhere. And this is thanks to what I mentioned as the second pillar, software development activities.
As far as the robot taxi is concerned, Level 5 is something that looks more like an idea. That’s something that is foreseeable today. But Level 4, where the vehicle works completely autonomously, but in a time and space that is dedicated for it, that is something that I still see very positively still. I mean, you have this Gartner Hype Cycle, like, level of excitement, everyone is like, ‘yeah, it’s gonna transfo
Well, it’s already commercialised, in very dedicated zones. I think it will be more or less gradually expanding in cities that are welcoming this kind of transport. And it’s very hard to say, like, when all the big cities will have adopted, But I see that as also differentiated region by region. For example, I don’t expect New Delhi to adopt exactly the same kind of services as San Francisco. That doesn’t mean that this technology will not be used in New Delhi. Probably it will be used to serve.last mile delivery. Or maybe by nighttime to deliver goods, or things like that.
Again, in Japan, I see that differently as well. It’s not to replace, let’s say services that are already very, very efficient as taxis. It’s much more in the rural areas, more low speed probably to develop where there is no transportation, but people want to move and there is no bus. So how do I make that happen? Then Level 4, with the limited zones within dedicated areas could completely serve this use case. So this is the way I see it. It’s not something that will pop up and generalise like we have been used in the automotive industry.
Q: If I’m not wrong, Valeo’s Bengaluru centre especially is also working on middleware, and some of the ADAS technologies also.
It absolutely is.
Q: For Valeo, which technology trend is the biggest business driver?
More or less everything is ramping up quite fast right now. Electrification – all those components such as the motors, electronics etc. The second one will be ADAS. It’s also something that is ramping up very fast.
Blurbs:
‘At Valeo we have a 4R strategy. ‘4R’ stands for recycle, reuse, repair, remanufacture.’
By using natural biosourced and recyclable materials, we have been able to reduce the carbon footprint of our latest generation wiper blade by 61%.
‘India is absolutely critical as an engineering base for Valeo. We have, especially in Chennai, a very significant part of our engineering, in all competencies of Valeo. By that I mean engineering in hardware, in electronics, in software, in cybersecurity, in materials.’
