Christian von Albrichsfeld, Continental Romania: “We need to have more people in STEM direction”

“We currently have certain mega trends in the automotive industry, and the tendency is to have more and more complex systems. We don’t test anymore a certain component or a certain system, but are heading to autonomous cars, connected cars.

Many countries have started to offer the possibility of testing these autonomous cars with of course test drivers on public roads. This is a very crucial topic for getting more R&D in Romania if our legislation will allow this,” Christian von Albrichsfeld, Head of Country, Continental Romania said during Automotive R&D Power Breakfast organized by Automotive Today and The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“Looking at the overall business model in Romania, we have to say that it’s not working anymore. In the past, for most companies coming to Romania was all about the cost topic. The wellbeing of Romanians has grown in the past decade so the business models for companies need to change.

We need to have better universities, and many more people in STEM direction. We also need the area of professional schools and to expand dual education.

We should care about people’s qualifications, not about how many years they spent in classes. We need to change the current mentality. We also need to have enough people working at the society level. There are only 5 million people working and paying taxes in Romania out of 16-17 million inhabitants. This is not sustainable.”