Automotive News Europe - September 2011 - 82

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ELMAR DEGENHART

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS EUROPE

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A CLEANER, SAFER FUTURE
Continental CEO says drive to cut accidents and reduce emissions will bring strong growth

ontinental sees increasing demand for safety systems and cleaner engines as huge growth drivers. The German supplier also is working on innovative technologies to bring the dream of accident-free driving closer to reality. CEO Elmar Degenhart talked about those topics and more with Automotive News Europe Editor-in-Chief Harald Hamprecht.
Where do you expect the most growth in Continental’s five divisions?

ry cars, it must be possible to develop the technology in a scalable manner so that it can be made available in compact and midsized vehicles quickly.
What technology will gain widespread acceptance — an onboard or an off-board solution?

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We can expect above-average growth compared with the global market in all five divisions. We see particularly large opportunities in the powertrain division. But we cannot single out any one division because all of them are experiencing above-average growth this year.
What are the driving forces in the chassis and safety division, your largest automotive division?

We clearly believe in the onboard solution because this is a highly sophisticated function, particularly with regard to safety. After all, today’s driver is already inundated with stimuli. For this reason, there will be more and more intuitive voice recognition in cars in the future. As it is, the car already has all five human senses at its disposal.
How, exactly?

An aviation and aerospace engineer by training, Elmar Degenhart had a fast rise through the German supplier industry. After a stint at ITT Automotive Europe, he joined Continental for the first time in 1998, moving to Robert Bosch five years later as head of chassis systems. Between 2005 and 2008, he served as CEO of Keiper Recaro, after which he became head of automotive at Schaeffler Group, which owns 49.9 percent of Continental. Degenhart, 52, was named CEO in 2009.

Safety, without a doubt! And not just with technologies such as electronic stability control or the brake systems of the future, but also in environment detection or other active safety systems. This includes radar sensors and cameras, and it is only a matter of time until every new car has at least one camera on board.
How fast will this happen?

Ten years or so. All the technology for environment detection is already available. It must now be launched on the market in larger volumes.
How long will it be before the vision of networked driving is realized?

Not only can it talk via navigation systems, it can also see the vehicles in the next lane and warn the driver of a dangerous lane change. It can hear a crash and deploy the relevant airbags by measuring the noise and impact on the bodywork. It can feel with its equilibrium device, the yaw rate sensor, which is part of electronic stability control. The car can taste its gasoline blend and even smell its own exhaust values in the catalytic converter. So whatever happens inside and outside the car is less and less attributable to the individual and isolated assessments and actions of the driver and more and more attributable to intelligent networking.
The car is no longer just a means of transportation or status symbol.

start thinking about major acquisitions again.
How many new employees will you take on in order to achieve your growth plans?

This can be achieved more quickly than many people currently believe. There is a very large need for this. If you want to get young people interested in cars, you must provide everything in the car that is already available in their social environment. And then it will take three vehicle generations until the technology has penetrated the market? We do not have that much time. Since drivers below the age of 30 rarely drive luxu-

Right. In the future, cars will be a kind of first-class “wellness lounge” on four wheels, equipped with sensors, cameras and telecommunications.
Are you planning on making any acquisitions?

We currently have nearly 160,000 employees worldwide and will be achieving sales of at least 29.5 billion euros this year. During the economic crisis in 2009, we only had 132,000 employees, and achieved sales of 20 billion euros with them. If I look at the automotive study conducted by Frost & Sullivan in late 2009, I can see that we cover all growth fields in the automotive industry. The study thus shows that we have the greatest growth opportunities on the market. So it is obvious that we will continue expanding with work force appropriately.
Last year, you ranked third behind Bosch and Denso in the Automotive News Europe global supplier ranking. How are you going to continue developing here?

We are very well poised so that there is no need to take urgent action. In addition, our net debt will be well below 7 billion euro at the end of the year. However, we will not be able to do much with this. Our goal is still to further reduce net debt and to achieve a gearing ratio of 70 percent. As soon as we have achieved this, we can

We want to remain among the top five in the world. It is not our goal to climb further up in this ranking. Our goal is to offer our customers the greatest benefit and the best quality, while achieving a high degree of profitability. ■

❙ For the complete Elmar Degenhart interview go to europe.autonews.com/degenhartexecedition ❙ 82
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Automotive News Europe - September 2011

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