Autoneum establishes Competence Center for New Mobility in Sunnyvale, USA

In light of emerging industry trends such as electric mobility, autonomous driving and connected cars, Autoneum is taking a pioneer role in product development and thus establishing a Competence Center for New Mobility in Sunnyvale, California. There, Autoneum is profiting from the proximity to other innovation leaders to evaluate the potential of current automotive trends and how they might be implemented in new technologies and products for acoustic and thermal management.

With the new Competence Center, Autoneum is pursuing its strategy for market and innovation leadership in vehicle acoustic and thermal management in order to support the company making a profitable contribution to the shape of mobility in the future. In the coming weeks, Autoneum’s acoustic and heat management experts will begin developing future-oriented components and systems at the Silicon Valley site. To take advantage of the market potential for new forms of mobility, Autoneum is building on its many years of expertise in developing multifunctional noise and heat protection components. Their lightweight construction contributes significantly to lower vehicle weight, with corresponding reductions in fuel consumption and emissions. Components like these also reduce vehicle noise and significantly improve driving comfort. In this way Autoneum is making an important contribution to perceived vehicle quality and profiting in result from megatrends such as self-driving cars, where driving comfort and optimal acoustics in the passenger cabin is of major importance.

The projected global increase in electric vehicles also presents new market opportunities for Autoneum. Right now Autoneum offers corresponding development services and supplies innovative lightweight parts to both new and established providers of electric vehicles around the world. Just like vehicles with a combustion engine, electric vehicles also need components to reduce noise from new or hitherto masked sources such as high-frequency sounds or rolling and wind noise. There are thermal challenges as well: Without waste heat from the engine, the passenger cabin of an electric vehicle can be significantly chillier than that of a vehicle powered by a combustion engine. Here too, Autoneum can assist OEMs with thermal management solutions.

With its Silicon Valley operation, Autoneum is taking a committed and active role in shaping mobility’s future and benefiting from knowledge transfer with other innovation leaders both inside and outside the automotive industry. Martin Hirzel, CEO of Autoneum, emphasized: “At our Competence Center for New Mobility we shall be developing innovative products and technologies for a wide range of vehicle concepts and forms, thus expanding our innovation leadership in acoustic and thermal management. We aim to provide established and new OEMs with the best possible range of acoustic and thermal management products for the cars of the future.”