Christian Von Albrichsfeld, Continental Romania: “We have to open the city for citizens, not just for cars”

“We are known for tires, but with 240,000 employees we also work on autonomous mobility and connected cars. 60% of Continental’s sales are for car electronics. We also work on the smart mobility side. We have factories, but also development centers,” Christian Von Albrichsfeld, Head of Country, Continental Romania said during Smart Transformation Forum organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“We see a lot of people dying every year because of air pollution in cities. Looking to mobility, 95 percent of the time a car is standing and just using space. We have to open the city space for the citizens, not just for cars.

We need to make traffic easier in the cities. One topic is automated driving, having more comfort, more safety.

We see a revolution in electric mobility. This is very much forced by laws. E-mobility becomes sustainable if you drive with green electricity. We need to bring more green energy into this ecosystem. We see main trends such as electric vehicles and charging, autonomous driving, shared seamless mobility, last-mile delivery, connectivity solutions, intelligent intersections.

Individual mobility will remain there, but maybe not in overcrowded cities. We have to give more space for people inside the cities today.

We see the society of the future as more human centric: shared, connected, smart, green and healthy. People need to understand new technologies and learn new competencies such as 5G, high-performance computing, cloud technology. We need to learn these new skills in the universities. What we need as industry is to create local living labs. Some current business models are not working anymore.”