ZF Friedrichshafen AG has signed an agreement with local authorities to establish a third Chinese research and development centre, located in Guangzhou, southern China. ZF plans to invest approximately €90 million in the facility.
ZF already has two development centres in China to support customers throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Both centres are located in Shanghai, one focusing on the development of active and passive safety technology, and the other driveline and chassis technology. The massive expansion of future technologies such as automated driving and e-mobility has created additional demand for engineering capacities, which ZF is aiming to address with the establishment of the R&D centre in Guangzhou.
“The decision to build a third development centre in China is of great importance and confirms ZF’s strategic goal of further expansion in the largest global automotive market,” stated Dr Holger Klein, a member of ZF’s Board of Management responsible for the Asia-Pacific region. “The new centre will develop key technologies and system solutions for ZF that we can also use in other market regions.”
The Guangzhou centre is planned to be operational by 2023 and will also be home to a satellite of the Shanghai-based R&D centres in order to help serve customers in southern China.
The Guangzhou facility will have core competencies in engineering and R&D and will cover aspects such as software development and related technologies for the mobility of the future. Together, ZF’s three centres in China will be able to offer customers system solutions ranging from software to hardware. The Guangzhou centre is in line with ZF’s approach of localising R&D directly in the respective markets and quickly adapting to the industry trends in electrification, automation, connectivity, and mobility services in China.
