Continental has begun construction of a plant in Texas, USA to expand its capacity for the production of radar sensors. The company is investing around €100 million in the construction of the 20,000 square metre site plant in New Braunfels over the next three years, with the groundbreaking ceremony planned for mid-2020, before the scheduled production of radar sensors starts in 2021. This plant adds to Continental’s radar sensors facility in Seguin, about 25km from New Braunfels, and adds 130 new jobs in the region to the existing 450 jobs at Seguin.
“Advanced driver assistance systems save lives. Continental is one of the world’s market leaders in this area. We are benefiting from steadily increasing fitment rates in new vehicles. And in the future, too, we are anticipating major growth opportunities,” stated Frank Jourdan, member of the Continental Executive Board responsible for the company’s Autonomous Mobility and Safety business unit.
“Over the next five years, we are planning further investments in the high triple-digit million Euro range in the areas of assisted and automated driving. The capacity expansion in New Braunfels is part of our growth strategy,” he added. “Between 2015 and 2019, sales more than doubled and we can see good opportunities to expand our market position even further in the future.”
US car manufacturers use Continental’s radar sensors for technologies such as emergency brake assist and adaptive cruise control. Technologies tailored specifically to the US market, such as blind-spot monitoring for passenger cars with trailers (Trailer Length Detection and Trailer Merge Assist), which first went into series production in 2018 in the Dodge Ram 1500, are also based on radar sensors.
In addition to New Braunfels, Continental is also represented in the USA by other locations for advanced driver assistance systems. These facilities include a development site in Auburn Hills near Detroit and in Santa Barbara, California, where the company develops Lidar technologies.
