May 2014
Summary
Réalités industrielles
What automobile industry for France in twenty years?
Complete issue
This issue was coordinated
by Emmanuel Sartorius
This issue was coordinated
Avant-propos: L’automobile: un enjeu considérable pour la France, tant en ce qui concerne les entreprises que l’intérêt public par Pascal FAURE,
I - Making cars in France
Making cars tomorrow in France: Utopia
By Philippe VARIN
Président du Directoire de PSA Peugeot Citroën d’avril 2009 à mars 2014
PSA Peugeot Citroën has an international dimension with a strong anchorage in France, especially in manufacturing. Its announcement in July 2012 that it would halt production at its assembly plant in Aulnay-sous-Bois sent tremors through the mass media and politics. Should this plant closing be seen as the first phase in a delocalization of manufacturing facilities? Or will — and can — PSA remain a major player in French industry? What are the conditions for the company, and for car-makers in general, to maintain a significant industrial presence in France?
There is no French “fatality” in manufacturing
By Carlos GHOSN
Président-directeur général du groupe Renault
For reason related to competitiveness, the automobile industry, like other sectors, is being forced to move closer to its markets and customers. Given this, do only utopians dream of making cars in France? No, under condition that the nation’s competitive advantage improves, a goal to be achieved by using several levers of action: encourage an active dialog with employees and their representatives that is turned toward reaching this goal; set up a general framework for making firms more competitive through complementary actions undertaken by car-makers and public authorities; use globalization as an opportunity for developing fruitful cooperation among manufacturers so as to stimulate a synergy and optimize each firm’s manufacturing capacities.
What automobile industry in twenty years?
By Didier LEROY
Président & CEO Toyota Motor Europe
The principal challenge in the coming years for car-making technology will be energy — the need to make vehicles that guzzle less gas and emit less CO2. A new form of mobility will emerge based not on a single solution but on the diversification of energy sources, with a sizeable share reserved for electricity and hydrogen fuel-cells. Toyota has decided to place hybrid motors at the center of its vision of this “smart” mobility in a society with vehicles connected to the Internet. This future mobility will have four pillars: safety, comfort, growing mobility and sustainable development.
II - The prospects for car parts and equipment
The prospects for car equipment makers
By Jacques ASCHENBROICH
Directeur général de Valeo
The automobile industry is an ecosystem where car-makers subcontract a sizeable portion not only of parts and components but also of the work of designing systems for vehicles. Current trends in the industry challenge parts makers, such as Valeo, which is trying to defend its position as number one or two worldwide in this branch. In terms of technology, the reduction of CO2 emissions and the new, autonomous or intuitive, steerage of vehicles are opportunities for whoever is willing to spend effort on innovation. In terms of geography, the shift of the automobile market’s center of gravity toward emerging countries (notably in Asia) opens a source of growth for those parts makers who have been able to deploy their manufacturing capacities worldwide thanks to an efficient system of production and to faultless product quality and reliability. None of this would be possible for Valeo if it did not have a solid territorial base in France and Europe.
Smartphones, the automobile’s future?
By Guy MAUGIS
Président de Robert BOSCH (France) SAS
et Franck CAZENAVE
Directeur Marketing & Innovation de Robert BOSCH (France) SAS
Given that they have penetrated nearly 50% of the market, smartphones are becoming everyday devices used by millions of people in France. They are, inevitably, meeting up with cars. Screens in motor vehicles are going to be connected to the Internet, in particular via the driver’s smartphone. Once such connections are made, other functions will be in the works. No more hunting for your keys… you only have to find your smartphone, the new car key! Thanks to microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), possibilities are arising for using smartphones as an interface with motor vehicles, for example to asses the driver’s state of health…
III - The evolving automobile industry
The FMEA
By Catherine DUPONT-GATELMAND
Directeur général du FMEA, membre du Codir Bpifrance Investissement
During the 2008 meltdown, the Fonds de Modernisation des Équipementiers Automobiles (FMEA) lent decisive support to firms deemed strategic for the French automobile industry. It is pursuing its work as part of Bpifrance. Its vision as a long-term investor in industry focuses on companies that, with a strong potential for growth, can sustain their branch of the economy. The major issues in the automobile industry are discussed along with the FMEA’s actions for addressing them. Between globalization and innovation, the French automobile industry will have to take the fast track to survive, and thrive.
The PFA’s role confirmed
By Michel ROLLIER
Président de la Plateforme Automobile Française (PFA)
With more than 400.000 employees, the French automobile industry represents a national asset. It includes car-makers, parts manufacturers and subcontractors. These stakeholders have to cope with two major factors: market trends (growth concentrated outside Europe) and product competitiveness. During the 2008-2009 recession, it became evident that an organization similar to what exists in other sectors would help the whole industry cope. The Plateforme de la Filiere Automobile (PFA) seeks to facilitate this organization in a vertical chain, which enables companies in a single branch to better identify common interests and form relations that foster confidence and, therefore, are more constructive. As a lightweight organization, the PFA tries to galvanize all automobile firms and all relevant research centers either directly or through their trade or regional organizations. It has much to do to reach its four objectives — innovation, working out a shared vision, solidarity and internationalization — in an emerging industrial landscape laden with promise.
Chains of added value in the automobile industry
By Serge CATOIRE
Ingénieur en Chef des Mines, Conseil général de l’Economie, de l’Industrie, de l’Energie et des Technologies (CGE)
For twenty years now, the French automobile industry has been adapting to a rapidly evolving globalized market and international competition. Its strategy has led to reducing automakers’ national footprint in line with trends in the worldwide production and sale of motor vehicles. Evidence of this adaptation is not only the closing of assembly plants but also the decreasing added value produced by the automobile industry in France.
An academic’s viewpoint: How to understand change?
By Bernard JULLIEN
Directeur du Groupe d’études et de recherches permanent sur l’industrie et les salariés de l’automobile (GERPISA) bernard.jullien@ens-cachan.fr
The classical distinction between center and periphery — with or without the idea of a “homeland base” (which used to be relevant for explaining differences in the performance of automakers’ internationalization strategies) — might now keep us from understanding the new phase of restructuring under way in the automobile industry. Two questions — related to product policies and productive organizations — serve to measure the new challenge that history has forced upon research in the social sciences. Social scientists must avoid transposing their grids of analysis to current events. They are being asked to renovate their theoretical paradigms and methods of investigation at a pace at least as fast as events in the field.
Quality, a source of value for the automobile industry and related services
By Lydie EVRARD
Ingénieure des Mines, Déléguée interministérielle aux Normes et sousdirectrice en charge de la Normalisation, de la Qualité, de la Métrologie et de la Propriété industrielle à la Direction générale de la Compétitivité, de l’Industrie et des Services (DGCIS)
The automobile industry must meet high requirements related to safety, environmental norms, price and, too, brand name. Quality is a major lever for being competitive, since it acts on production costs and helps meet consumer expectations. It is important for joint specifications to be adopted since they can decisively improve the competitive edge of those who know how to position themselves in the process of drawing up internationally recognized standards. Public authorities play a key role by supporting procedures for ongoing improvements (essential to increasing a company’s competitive advantage) and implementing a strategy of standardization in the service of public policies, in particular for France to reconquer its industry.
Engineering firms and the automobile industry
By Cyril ROGER
Directeur général délégué du groupe Altran en charge de la France, de l’Europe du Sud et du Moyen Orient
Consumer expectations with regard to mobility, safety and the environment have become strategic issues for firms in the automobile industry — issues that are economic as well as industrial or technological. Engineering firms have gradually become full-fledged players in this branch of the economy, alongside car-makers and parts manufacturers.
IV – New technologies, new services, new stakeholders?
On the road toward a private vehicle that consumes only two liters per hundred kilometers
By Olivier APPERT
Président-directeur général d’IFP Énergies nouvelles
The “Vehicle 2l/100km” program is one of the 34 industrial projects announced by the French president. It stems from a European compromise for reducing, between 2012 and 2015, the average emission by new cars of CO2 to 130 g/km and then to 95 g by 2020. Realizing this ambitious project requires not only improving systems of propulsion and reducing the weight of vehicles but also increasing the reliance on information and telecommunication technology. These technological trends should lead to modifications in drivers’ behavior patterns…
Automatic steering: A buzz or an industrial reality?
By Arnaud de LA FORTELLE
Professeur à Mines ParisTech, Centre de Robotique
Automatic steering has been a hot topic in recent years. Google has emerged as a major contender throwing the automobile industry off tilt; and effective communication campaigns have attracted the attention of the public. But automatic vehicles have existed for years now. So does all this amount to a buzz set off by a major Web player, or does it signal that what was a possibility has reached maturity? Will such vehicles soon be running on our roads? Automatic steering techniques and their degree of maturity are presented so as to measure what has been accomplished and what is still to be done. Attention is then turned to their legal and economic consequences. This article serves as a brief introduction to a controversial topic, which is well worth understanding.
Is growing individual mobility compatible with the fight against climate change?
By Dominique AUVERLOT
Commissariat général à la Stratégie et à la Prospective
How to make the considerable increases in mobility and the number of automobiles compatible with the necessity of dividing worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases in half? In the quest for a satisfying solution at the least cost, priorities must be set; and the effects, assessed. Three factors stand out: technical progress in motor vehicles, modified behavior patterns thanks to the development of alternatives to the private car, and innovations in digital technology.