Valeo China President Francois Marion

Q1, What are your expectations for the auto show?

A1: It will be a good opportunity to promote our technologies, the relevance of which have been further enhanced by the pandemic. With the COVID-19 crisis, we are witnessing both a growing preference for individual mobility and accelerating demand for safer electric mobility all over the world.

Q2, With the pandemic slowing down, China’s automotive market has started to recover in the second quarter. What do you predict for China's auto market in the near future? The current recovery trend shows a “V” shape in sales, what do you think would be in the next stage? A “√” shape, a “W” shape, an “M” shape, or a “√¯” shape?

A2: We have experienced a fantastic V-shape recovery of the auto market in China since the second quarter of the year. We believe in the growth potential of the automotive market in China over the next five years with the continuous development of consumption as well as an increasing demand for mobility. The number of middle-income consumers in China keeps growing as does their wealth and passenger cars are still a very important element of personal mobility.

Q3, Can you use a few keywords to describe your predictions for the Chinese and global automotive industries in the next five years?

A3: Electrified, connected, shared, autonomous, smart

Q4, The virus has drastically affected people's lives. It has also caused people to rethink many aspects of life, including their way of traveling, and business management. From your perspective, what are the most important lessons we can take away from this pandemic? Can you also use a few keywords to summarize the impact?

A4: I’m really proud of our teams and thankful for what we did especially in the beginning of the pandemic to guarantee the safety of employees and the continuity of business. We reacted very fast to implement the health protocol over all our sites and we were able to start the production of our 35 plants in China at the earliest stage possible with the support of the respective local governments.

keywords to summarize: Safety, continuity, agility, reactivity, resilience, unity, smart and innovation.

Q5, What do you think about the social responsibilities that the automotive companies have taken during the epidemic?

A5: I remember at that time, people were all trying to contribute in order to fight against the pandemic. So were the enterprises in the automotive industry.

Q6, In the post-epidemic era, how will China's position and role be affected in the global automotive industry? What do you think the players should do next?

A6: China will remain the largest automotive market in the world and China is actually leading the transformation in the direction of electrification and autonomous driving. Valeo has been sticking to the principle of “Be Chinese in China” since its establishment in China 26 years ago. Today, the majority of our supply chain is “local for local” and this model has proven to be resilient.  On top of that, we have transformed ourselves from “Made in China” to “Invent with China”.