Christian von Albrichsfeld, Continental Romania: “One of the priorities is to reduce time-to-market, we must adapt and be competitive, but with less effort”

“We have big challenges against the backdrop of geopolitical and economic changes. We have all made a commitment to go in the direction of reducing CO2 emissions, we want to do this very consistently.

The world is still not very convinced of how the car of the future will look, and this can be seen in the market results. What do people do if they are not convinced? They wait.

The global car production capacity was around 90 million units in 2018. Now, we produce around 80 million cars. The market has become more competitive and we all face the problem of maintaining a certain level of profit for shareholders.

Parliamentary elections are approaching soon and I believe that politicians must consider drafting legislation that will help reduce CO2 emissions, but at the same time be accepted by consumers.

One thing is very clear. We have to become much more efficient. Our company works very hard to improve this aspect. We use big data, artificial intelligence and invest a lot in research and development. We are moving towards vertical integration and we have seen from our competitors that this helps us. We have to analyse every aspect of business and see how we can be more efficient in a constantly changing world,” Christian von Albrichsfeld, Head of Country, Continental Romania said during Automotive Forum 2024 organized by Automotive Today and The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“In Romania we have a big challenge, namely the trade balance deficit, which is 30 billion euros every year. Romania spends more than it produces, and the difference is huge. Romania must be more competitive as a European country. Let’s grow more through work, let’s increase productivity in the country because the minimum wage is 4 times higher than 10 years ago. We must create and attract more jobs.

We have over 5 million Romanians who work, who pay taxes and social security in a country with 17-18 million inhabitants. We need another 1-2 million people to work in Romania and that way we could also solve the budget deficit problems and we would have more money for important investments. The solution is not to increase taxes for companies and people who are already working.

Continental has been investing in Romania for over 25 years in production, but also in research and development, investing in jobs with added value. We have a lot of jobs in Romania that have a global responsibility, in which people from the country decide how the company functions on a global level.

2025 will be a year in which the competition in the automotive industry will be even greater than this year. One of the priorities is to reduce time-to-market, we must adapt and be competitive, but with less effort. Greater performance with less effort means bringing many new processes into the company, with the help of artificial intelligence, big data management, cybersecurity and other solutions that we can integrate as well as possible into the development activity and create valuable jobs in Romania added global responsibilities.”