ZF Breaks Ground on Its Fourth R&D Centre in China

GUANGZHOU, CHINA--Recently, ZF officially broke ground on its fourth new research and development (R&D) center in Guangzhou China. This groundbreaking marks that ZF is speeding up the layout of research and development in China in a bid to further enhance its capacity to provide services to local customers.

ZF already has three development centers in China, with one located in Jinan and the other two located in Shanghai. The new Guangzhou R&D center project phase one, with an investment of approximately ¥700 million and an area of approximately 1,0000m², is planned to be completed in late 2022 and operational by 2023.

Guangzhou technology center, when fully operational, will have 1000 employees and features multiple advanced laboratories, software and hardware test environment, and one test track for high-speed, dynamic and autonomous driving scenario tests. By that time, ZF’s existing R&D capacities will be strengthened futher. In the meantime, its advantages in systemic technology solutions will also be enhanced further through the complementarity and synergy among the four R&D centers in China.

As ZF's fourth R&D center in China and the first R&D center in Southern China, ZF Guangzhou Technical Center has core engineering technology R&D capabilities. Relying on its own technical strength and the great talent resource in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, ZF will provide local customers with comprehensive technical solutions like active safety systems, passive safety systems, autonomous driving, and electric drive systems by focusing on its core competency including software development, mechatronics design and system integration. 

"ZF will continue to invest in China. The establishment of ZF Guangzhou Technical Center further demonstrates our resolution to continue to explore the Chinese market and marks the further improvement of ZF's R&D layout in China. Meanwhile, we will utilize our world leading production technology to contribute to the development of Chinese auto industry. Furthermore, China has become one of the important bases to first introduce our products and technologies. We are at the frontline of a rapidly developed automotive industry, and will definitely be playing an increasingly important role in an open ecosystem.” said Dr. Holger Klein, Director of ZF Group.

Ms. Runyi Wang, President of ZF Group China and Senior Vice President of Asia Pacific Operations, said, "Southern China is one of the most active regions for automotive R&D in China under the new trends of Next-Generation Mobility. Strong local R&D and service capabilities will greatly improve the efficiency of our communication with customers, better meet the diverse needs and empower the automotive productivity. We will further enhance the overall competitiveness within the automotive industry in Southern China and achieve common prosperity in the automotive industry chain through attracting more top technology talents from across the country and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to the automotive industry and related ecosystem."

Southern market is one of the most important regional automotive market, and its industrial scale, consumption capacity and development growth rate are all among the highest in China. The market layout in southern China is an important step for ZF to explore further in China, which can effectively speed up the achievement of ZF's development goals in China, and act as an imporant starting point for ZF to move from "China sales", "China manufacturing", "China R&D" to "China leading".

Today, as the automotive industry has been undergoing a massive transformation towards electrification, automation, software and digitization, the establishment of ZF Guangzhou Technical Center will help ZF Group realize its vision of creating next-generation mobility solutions in China.

ZF has set up nearly 50 production enterprises and four R&D centers in more than 20 cities in China. In the future, it will continue to take root in China and cultivate the Chinese market, follow and lead the way in technology innovation by enhancing its innovation capabilities and promoting digital manufacturing. Meanwhile, it will take more social responsibility to contribute to China's sustainable development, and work with Chinese partners to build the "next generation of mobility" and fulfill the commitment of "made in China, made for China".

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