Continental realigns for future mobility

The Exec­u­tive Board of the tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny Con­ti­nen­tal decid­ed to under­take one of the largest orga­ni­za­tion­al realign­ments in the company’s his­to­ry. In doing so, the Dax-list­ed com­pa­ny will con­tin­ue to grow faster than its rel­e­vant mar­kets and take full advan­tage of new poten­tial for expan­sion in the key future areas of mobility.
The two cur­rent divi­sions Tires (“Tire Tech­nolo­gies” in the future) and Con­tiTech will retain their inde­pen­dent orga­ni­za­tion­al struc­ture. Their busi­ness results will be report­ed in the future Con­ti­nen­tal Rub­ber group sector.
“This is indeed a his­toric day for Con­ti­nen­tal. We are head­ing into the future of mobil­i­ty at full speed. Our proven readi­ness and capac­i­ty to change give us an out­stand­ing com­pet­i­tive edge which we want to use to the fullest. Our realign­ment will make us excep­tion­al­ly flex­i­ble and agile. In Continental’s suc­cess­ful val­ues alliance for top val­ue cre­ation, we are grow­ing to meet upcom­ing chal­lenges, remain­ing com­pet­i­tive now and in the future. This con­tin­ues to require pio­neer­ing and inno­v­a­tive excel­lence. With this alliance, we are open­ing up new, promis­ing per­spec­tives for our cus­tomers, employ­ees, investors and all oth­er stake­hold­ers,” said Dr. Elmar Degen­hart, Con­ti­nen­tal CEO.

Drive systems area aligned to meet the requirements of markets and customers

Pow­er­train will con­tin­ue to be in charge of all future busi­ness involv­ing hybrid and elec­tric dri­ve sys­tems and all cur­rent bat­tery activ­i­ties, in addi­tion to the com­bus­tion engine busi­ness. This includes, for instance, the joint ven­ture for 48-volt bat­tery sys­tems recent­ly announced.
The fore­see­able change in the dri­ve sys­tems busi­ness is the rea­son why a new inde­pen­dent legal enti­ty is being cre­at­ed. The way the mar­ket evolves will large­ly be deter­mined by polit­i­cal demands regard­ing emis­sion lim­its. The pace at which polit­i­cal deci­sion-mak­ers are push­ing reg­u­la­tions varies, par­tic­u­lar­ly in key mar­kets, includ­ing Europe, North Amer­i­ca and Chi­na, as well as Japan and South Korea, and growth mar­kets such as India. This requires a great deal of flex­i­bil­i­ty on the part of the indus­try in order to be able to react quick­ly to the indi­vid­ual needs of the var­i­ous mar­kets, reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ties, soci­eties and customers.

Reorganization of the Chassis & Safety and Interior divisions

The oper­a­tions of the two oth­er Auto­mo­tive divi­sions Chas­sis & Safe­ty and Inte­ri­or will be realigned with the chang­ing require­ments and future oppor­tu­ni­ties pre­sent­ed by the mar­kets and will be divid­ed into two new­ly cre­at­ed busi­ness areas called “Autonomous Dri­ving Tech­nolo­gies” and “Vehi­cle Net­work­ing Tech­nolo­gies” by the begin­ning of 2020.
The goal of this inte­gra­tion is to max­i­mize R&D pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and achieve a smooth, speedy prod­uct launch, which is cru­cial in the indus­tries rel­e­vant for Con­ti­nen­tal. This will be made pos­si­ble pri­mar­i­ly by con­cen­trat­ing R&D fac­ul­ties on the func­tions in the vehi­cle and its sur­round­ings, regard­less of which elec­tron­ic assem­blies and sys­tems these are assigned to lat­er on. This focus on func­tions will facil­i­tate the cre­ation of pio­neer­ing solu­tions for greater safe­ty, com­fort, con­ve­nience and con­nec­tiv­i­ty on the roads.

Rubber sector: Continental retains ownership of its nucleus

The Tire (“Tire Tech­nolo­gies” in the future) and Con­tiTech divi­sions cur­rent­ly make up the Rub­ber Group, which in the future will be report­ed as a “group sec­tor” with the new name “Con­ti­nen­tal Rub­ber”. The two busi­ness areas will con­tin­ue to spe­cial­ize in the devel­op­ment of tech­nol­o­gy prod­ucts based upon rub­ber and plastics.