Europe’s world-famous auto brands face their most uncertain time since Gottlieb Daimler produced the first automobile 120 years ago. In the face of collapsing global demand and fundamental changes in product design, can new technologies help automakers survive and collaborate more effectively to produce a new generation of cleaner, quality cars?
This is one of the most challenging times in history for an accomplished senior executive to lead a key European manufacturing association. At the beginning of 2009, Carlos Ghosn, president and chief executive of Renault-Nissan, took the driving seat as head of ACEA, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, which represents the interests of most of Europe’s leading carmakers.
By then, auto manufacturers and suppliers across Europe had already been forced to slash production, close plants, and cut thousands of jobs as they struggled to stay roadworthy amid the world’s worst auto business slowdown in decades.
“It is vital that our industry can keep fulfilling its key role in Europe in terms of growth, investments, employment, and technological leadership,” Ghosn said at the time his appointment was announced.
Clearly, Europe’s auto industry is unlikely to look the same after a recovery finally arrives. Consolidation among key players is already under way. Fiat’s recent tie-up with Chrysler in the United States may be just the beginning of the next phase, made ever more urgent by the global economic downturn. Shared factories, too, such as the Porsche Cayenne, VW Touareg, and Audi Q7 shared production at the group’s plant in Bratislava, Slovakia, may have an increasing part to play.
“Could we eventually be looking at a networked system of shared factories building cars across Europe?” wonders Heinrich Flegel, member of the supervisory board at Daimler AG, in an exclusive interview with Manufacturing Executive. “Maybe I’m just dreaming.”
Maybe not. Disruptive times demand disruptive solutions. “More and more auto companies are sharing production resources, research, and risk,” says Sergio Colella, the Paris-based automotive industry and industrial equipment lead for Accenture in Europe. “It seems, more and more, to be an answer for both development and manufacturing.”
Car Sharing
“An increasing number of companies are using common manufacturing facilities to build different brands in the same location with research resources and manufacturing engineering for new cars developed in common between different automakers,” Colella says.
Increased collaboration is just one gearshift in the auto industry. ACEA President Ghosn’s emphasis on ‘technological leadership’ is equally fundamental to Europe’s auto future, especially as market and government pressure mounts to develop ever-greener, low-emission, more-fuel-efficient vehicles. And we are not just talking about today’s small electric town cars or Hybrid Saloons. Even aristocratic U.K. auto brand Bentley is expected to reveal a high-performance luxury sports car running on ethanol at the 2009 Geneva Motor Show in March.
Like Ghosn, a growing number of people believe that innovative technology — both in new products and the manufacturing processes that create them — can help drive industry recovery.
