Patrick Koller has the smile of a satisfied boss when he visits the latest Chinese factory of Forvia, the leading French automotive supplier in the Middle Kingdom, which has been gradually ramping up since July. Located in Jiangxi, a central province, precisely in Fengcheng, this is Forvia’s first carbon-neutral industrial site.
For its inauguration, Forvia invited more than two hundred people on November 10. And if a storm covered the speeches, the important thing was not there: Forvia made its Fengcheng factory the showcase of its industrial capabilities, in the country where it has more than eighty installations, most of them in joint ventures. . In addition to the wells dug under the “mega-factory”, which enable carbon neutrality thanks to heat pumps, there are more robots than humans.
Wheeled rollers, which look like large autonomous vacuum cleaners, carry shelves loaded with parts on their backs throughout the factory. They go back and forth between the production line and an almost fully automated logistics room. The employees simply receive the parts, and load other robots which assemble motherboards, screens, or dashboards.
Elsewhere, two people wipe the screens with a cloth to erase the slightest trace. In a clean room, which can only be observed through a window, operators in full suits wander between large metal boxes: it is here that the finest electronic components are assembled, where the slightest dust must be excluded.
The company led by Mr. Koller signed an agreement with the city of Fengcheng, committing to invest 200 million euros on the site by 2028. A substantial investment, which demonstrates the importance of China for Forvia, new name for Faurecia after the acquisition of the German Hella, in 2022. The group achieved 5.38 billion euros in turnover in China in 2022, or 20% of its activity, behind the Europe and the United States. Other French equipment manufacturers are also betting on China: Michelin, Plastic Omnium and Valeo are investing massively in the country, not only the world’s largest automotive market, but also the one with the best growth potential.
“An equipment market”
The Chinese bought 23.6 million individual cars in 2022, and could acquire more than 30 million in 2030. “Europe, the United States, Japan are renewal markets [de véhicules]. China is still an equipment market. This explains why, despite the geopolitical risks, equipment manufacturers cannot not be there”, summarizes Olivier Hanoulle, automotive analyst for the consulting company Roland Berger. Especially since, according to a study by the same Roland Berger, equipment manufacturers achieve an average margin of 5.4% in China, compared to 3.7% in Europe.
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