Earlier this week, Faurecia announced it had launched a public tender cash offer to acquire a 60% stake in Hella, ending a months-long bidding process for the fast-growing German supplier. The transaction represents an estimated total enterprise value of €6.7 billion for Hella. Faurecia says the combination will create a global leader in fast-growing automotive technologies fully aligned with industry megatrends.

“This combination is a unique opportunity to create a global leader in automotive technologies,” said Patrick Koller, CEO of Faurecia. “By combining our product portfolios and market reach, we will accelerate profitable growth, through innovation, with more electronic and software content and enhanced execution quality.”

The deal would create the seventh-largest global automotive supplier, with an advanced technology portfolio and a focus on innovation in electronics and software with combined sales of €3.7 billion in that area. It would also have a unique zero-emissions offering, combining Faurecia’s hydrogen with Hella’s electrification solutions.

“Faurecia and Hella are a very good fit,” said Dr. Rolf Breidenbach, CEO of Hella. “Both partners place a high value on consequent customer orientation, operative excellence, and technology leadership.”

One of the key focuses is becoming a major player in electronics and software solutions to accelerate its ADAS (advance driver assistance system) and autonomous driving technology development, with the combination of Faurecia Clarion Electronics (FCE) and Hella Electronics and Software supporting the next high-speed and low-speed ADAS convergence.

FCE was founded in 2019 by grouping Clarion, Parrot Automotive, Coagent, and Creo Dynamics—as well as more recent Faurecia acquisitions including Covatech and Irystec. That strengthened its Cockpit of the Future expertise with electronic systems integration capabilities, allowing the company to provide these technologies as “techno-bricks” or as complete solutions to carmakers to enable the whole cockpit experience.

The company is hoping to capitalize on greater needs for electronic displays, which it says are both growing in size and increasing in number, incorporating curves, complex shapes, and automatic display adjustments technologies as carmakers seek to offer increasingly personalized experiences for vehicle occupants. Solutions from e-mirrors to displays that span the length of the dashboard are fueling its growth in strategic automotive markets. Recent awards and starts of production for displays technologies confirm FCE’s growth across continents and the diversification of its customer portfolio.

“Our global industrial and R&D footprint, which has always been an asset, has proven to be essential at a time when global supply chains have been deeply impacted by the pandemic,” said Edouard da Silva, Display Global Product Line Director at FCE.

The 20 business awards FCE secured for Chinese OEMs in the past two years include a 1.4 m (55 in) wide curved screen that stretches across the dashboard and behind the steering wheel—said to be the largest available display in the automotive market—for famous-brand luxury sedans; L-shaped displays for an important electric automaker; and dual displays equipping an SUV for a very popular Chinese OEM.

In North America, FCE is set to supply 1 million displays over a six-year period to a legacy U.S. automaker starting in 2022, and it will supply an all-electric new entrant with displays for delivery vans and pickup trucks in 2021. Both are FCE’s first awards from these carmakers.

Recent developments from Hella look to build upon this success in the areas of ADAS and autonomous driving technology development.

Hella recently that it is developing concepts for light-based communication for automated driving, the research project focusing on how self-driving cars can communicate with pedestrians and cyclists. The company is partnering with Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Fraunhofer IOSB, Würzburg Institute of Traffic Sciences, and Saarland University on a three-year project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

“Wherever cars, vehicles, or pedestrians meet, road users have to communicate, for example when crossing roads or in unclear right-of-way situations,” said Dr. Michael Kleinkes, Member of the Executive Board, Head of Lighting Development, Hella. “It must still be ensured that self-driving vehicles are also able to communicate with other road users. Lighting technology will play a prominent role in this.”

Researchers are investigating how an autonomous vehicle can use light-based systems to signal that it has detected a pedestrian or cyclist and that it is safe for them to change sides of the road. For example, LED-based status indicators or displays on the vehicle body could be used. The new project builds on Hella’s “interACT” research project, completed last year, using communication methods in the connected infrastructure of a test site in Oldenburg.

Hella is one of the world’s largest suppliers of radar sensors, having produced over 90 million 24-GHz sensors. The company has now begun producing 77-GHz radars for an international automaker at its electronics plant in Hamm, Germany. First produced for the truck sector last spring, Hella now has major orders for passenger cars, including from a German premium customer, and trucks, with further production starting soon.

“With our innovative 77-GHz radar sensors, we are continuing to drive the trend towards automated driving,” said Björn Twiehaus, Member of the Management Board, Electronics Business Division, Hella. “By using highly efficient hardware and smart software, we are taking radar-based 360-degree environment perception to the next level and are thus driving safe mobility.”

Hella believes that radar sensors have established themselves as one of the core technologies for assisted and autonomous driving. They recognize pedestrians and other road users and objects around the vehicle regardless of weather and lighting conditions. For autonomous parking or automated lane changes, 77-GHz technology offers a significantly larger signal bandwidth and improved environmental resolution compared to 24-GHz units, making it easier to detect and classify objects.

The company is already developing the second-generation 77-GHz radar for series production for another German premium manufacturer in 2024. For the new technology, the company is using the latest antenna and chip technologies to increase range, extend the field of view, and improve measuring capabilities at close range.

Objects such as trucks, cars, bicycles, and pedestrians can be detected and tracked more precisely. The position and height of small objects such as curbs and roadside posts can also be determined more accurately.