Ambitious Pioneer in the Field of Sustainable Mobility
POSITIV 3/2020 35
Lubomír Tuček, responsible for Country Communication,
evaluated the company’s position. “I view our success as
an affi rmation of us going down the right path, and that
our work has meaning. The competition in the automotive
fi eld is large, but the awards we received assure us that we
will not get lost among our competitors.”
Vitesco Technologies was founded in October of last
year through the conversion of a division of Continental
Powertrain with the ambitious goal of becoming a pioneer
in sustainable mobility. Its locations in the Czech Republic
include two manufacturing sites in Trutnov and Frenštát
pod Radhoštěm, and a development center in Ostrava. The
company’s product portfolio includes propulsion system
technologies, electronics, sensors and batteries. Lubomír
Tuček summarized the recent declaration of the company
CEO, Andreas Wolf, saying, “By sustainable mobility, we
refer to technologies for hybrid and electric vehicles. The
company leadership believes that vehicles powered by
electricity will hold 50% of the automotive industry by
2030. Purely electric vehicles will hold about 10% to 15%.”
The company delivers its products to more than twenty
infl uential automotive companies, which include Ford,
Hyundai, Audi, Renault, PSA, BMW, Volkswagen, Daimler
and General Motors.
We present to you two of their sites, the plant in Frenštát
pod Radhoštěm and R&D center in Ostrava, and we
bring you an interview with their directors.
The plant in Frenštát pod Radhoštěm produces
automotive components distributed globally, and
currently employs about 2,800 people.
In 2007, Continental took over automotive
manufacturing of the Siemens concern. Last October,
the business became part of the newly created Vitesco
Technologies, which belongs to the Continental group.
The Frenštát pod Radhoštěm plant has always primarily
produced electronics, from car body electronics,
engine control modules, many types of sensors to
door modules and remote control door keys. Over a
period of six years, the plant also produced electronic
components for so-called “white products,” such as
washing machines, fridges or dishwashers. Recently,
products made for hybrid and electric vehicles were
added to the list. In 2019, the plant produced sixty-
eight million products of almost 2,000 different
categories. These products were mainly delivered to
Daimler, Ford, Volkswagen, General Motors and BMW.
With an expansion of the product portfolio, the plant’s
technological capabilities also had to grow, and that is
why the plant now employs experts in plastic handling,
testing, automation, and robotization. The Frenštát
plant began implementing Industry 4.0 in 2015-2016,
and because of that, they became regional leaders in
this fi eld.