Hello From Valeo: November is Here!

Do you love cars?

(YES!)

Do you want to know what your next car will look like?

(ALSO YES!) 

Well, we're here to help. We write this newsletter up just for you so that you have insider knowledge of what trends are shaping the automotive industry, and why. 

WHAT HAVE WE BEEN WORKING ON?

ELEVATE 2028 is the most important topic we've been working on in the last month.

Simply put, it's all about securing our financial future. 

Why? Because we care about your experience, full stop. The reality is that we are working behind the scenes for customers such as Volkswagen, Renault, BMW, General Motors, Toyota, l

Geely and every other brand that's a household name. You as the end user are directly impacted by the decisions we make on a daily basis. Our financial strength is critical to a safer, cleaner and more efficient cars of tomorrow and today.

Our three pillars of increased profitability, higher cash generation and the return to growth will ensure just that. 

WHAT ARE WE EXCITED ABOUT?

Through a PFA initiative, we’re welcoming students at our Créteil and Issoire sites in France very soon! They will have the opportunity to discover our production and R&D activities and interact with our talented employees. The Explore Auto Tour is a national initiative aimed at promoting automotive professions and showing younger generations the attractiveness of the automotive sector. The Explore Auto Tour goes on from November 18 to December 11, with 60 sites across France. We can’t wait to show you more!

WHAT'S NEW IN THE INDUSTRY?

Everyone loves AI. ChatGPT is definitely a key reason. But AI goes beyond just checking whether your email has any typos in it. For example, through our partnership with Google Cloud,100% of Valeo’s software engineers are trained and equipped with generative AI. 25% of our certified automotive code is already AI-generated, up from 0% only 16 months ago. That’s an incredible acceleration.

Gen AI can also greatly simplify the analysis of specifications, which we already do. We have already pre-processed more than one million specifications using AI. The future step is to support the automatic design of physical parts themselves through generative design. But, more importantly, AI can help tackle one of our sector's greatest challenges: improving road safety through the acceleration of autonomous driving.

Data  is what powers AI. And creating a shared European data space is critical. That's why our CEO, Christophe Périllat called for common standards and shared methods to ensure interoperability, along with a sovereign governance framework guaranteeing GDPR compliance, privacy by design, certification mechanisms, and secure data exchanges. He made this during his keynote speech at the iconic Grand Palais in Paris, during the Adopt AI summit.

AI can save lives. So let’s accelerate the adoption of AI in cars, to make sure it does. And to do so will require a collective effort. So let's get cracking, shall we?

Cool factoid of the day:

Air quality in Paris has dramatically increased recently! NO2 levels, for example, have dropped by 40%. The level of exposure of Parisians to fine particles (PM2.5) fell by 28% between 2012 and 2022. The renewal and modernization of the vehicle fleet with less polluting vehicles is the main factor behind this improvement. This is concrete proof of the positive impact of less polluting vehicles and technologies, the effect of which is set to increase with the accelerated transition to electric mobility. Good job, everyone!

The number of the day: 32%

According to European auto industry ody ACEA, in the first nine months of the year, sales of new plug-in hybrids in Europe and the UK increased 32% from a year earlier to nearly 920,000 vehicles, compared with a 25% rise in EVs to 1.8 million vehicles.