IS ITALY THE NEW CRADLE OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES?

The Chinese company TJ Innova Engineering&Technology lands in Italy with the intention of investing € 300 million in the production of electric cars. SAPA will cooperate as from 2021 and will create 300 jobs in Central and Southern Italy.

China means business!

Just a couple of weeks ago I wrote an article about the sizeable electric vehicle development plan that the Chinese government is implementing.  (You can access it here).  The objective is to overtake the world automotive giants and become the world leader in this new production sector.

It is estimated that between 2.5 and 5 million electric cars will be produced by 2025. In China alone.

What do you think about this? It is certainly important numbers.

And whatever your opinion on electric cars, when China makes a move we must, I believe, take its investment plans into serious consideration.

Because China is a big market, of course, but also because many of the major car makers decided to invest there: Volkswagen, Renault and Tesla, just to name a few.

Does this mean that the future of the car is Chinese?

I don’t think so. Please bear with me and I’ll tell you why.

The Chinese government is due to produce between 2.5 and 5 million electric cars by 2025.

Why Italy is the place you’d want to invest on cars

Between 9th and 11th September, a group of Chinese investors of the company TJ Engineering&Technology visited Italy with a clear project in mind: opening a 300,000 s.m. plant to design and produce electric and hybrid cars, starting from 2021.

If you are wondering why they chose Italy, the answer is easy. The century-long tradition of brands such as Fiat and Ferrari is a guarantee of quality and stability for foreign investors.

After visiting the areas around Turin and Modena, which have a high concentration of companies operating in the automotive sector, their attention moved towards Central and Southern Italy, in particular between Ponte Valentino and Benevento. This area is also home to SAPA and has a high concentration of big companies that are of pivotal importance for the local communities, in particular I’m referring to FCA plants in Melfi, Pomigliano and Cassino.

When SAPA got bigger and started to play with the giants of this sector, I myself wondered whether it would make sense to move towards more industrialised regions of Italy. We decided to stay here instead, in the region that had helped us grow, and today I could not be happier about this decision.

The area in question is truly a small oasis with a high concentration of specialised manpower and of Universities and Research Centres, which are crucial to our work.

Several years ago, SAPA created a Research Prize in honour of my father, Angelo Affinita, precisely in order to boost collaboration with these institutions and to support research and innovation, which are fundamental for us.

I am not surprised that this area attracts the attention of foreign investors in search of a stable future for their new businesses.

It was precisely in view of cooperating that SAPA hosted and took part in this meeting, thus reinforcing our ongoing collaboration with China. SAPA has recently inaugurated its first plant outside of Europe, in Shanghai: it will allow us to interface in a more effective, swift and performing way with the local European car makers that have plants in China as well as with oriental car makers, in particular Korean and Japanese ones.

Are you ready to make room for a new car concept?

There is one thing I am sure of: the changes that China is bringing about clearly indicate that the car will no longer be as we know it today. Whether you like electric and hybrid cars or not, the automotive sector is going down this route. The sector requires:

1. Reducing emissions
2. Lightweighting the parts
3. Reducing waste
4. Faster production processes.

At SAPA, we have been taking these requirements into account for years. Electric cars meet these requirements, but the rest of the automotive industry must integrate them, too.

No-one is excluded.

The One-Shot® Method, which rests on the optimisation of the production phases, meets these requirements and guarantees:

• Less weight
• Shorter time;
• Less waste
• High quality standards

These characteristics of the method perfectly match the new trends in the oriental market of investing in electric cars, and at the same time they can massively improve your daily work, too.

What does this all mean?

It means that the parts produced with the One-Shot® Method can solve the issues that you face every single day, whether you are currently working at electric, hybrid or traditional cars.

With the One-Shot® Method:

• PRODUCTION TAKES PLACE IN JUST ONE PRODUCTION ISLAND, WITH ONE SINGLE MOULD: this will make you save time and reduce waste significantly
• IT IS PATENTED AS THE WORLD’S FASTEST METHOD TO PRODUCE CAR PARTS: this will maximise production and you will no longer have downtime
• IT CAN BE APPLIED TO ANY TYPE OF PART: this will certainly impress your boss and it also means that you will no longer have to search far and wide for new solutions 
• MORE LIGHTWEIGHT PARTS: no more sleepless nights worrying about meeting the Horizon 2020 standards
• YOU’LL STILL HAVE HIGH QUALITY STANDARDS: you will be able to offer a groundbreaking product that your customers love

Besides all this, the latest research carried out by SAPAs Innovation Engineering department goes towards using new bio-composite materials that can meet the zero waste requirements of a market that demands more lightweight, less polluting cars.

What actually is the One-Shot® Method?

In short, the One-Shot® Method is an opportunity to take part in change.

Besides the characteristics described above, the true inventiveness of this method lies precisely in…. Being a method.

Let me explain myself better.

SAPA’s method can be applied to all the parts that you are working at right now. The opportunity to have the competitive advantages I told you about above is not offered by a product but rather by the method itself. And the parts that the One-Shot® Method was already applied to are a proof of this.

If you don’t want to be left behind in this revolution in the automotive sector, I can assure you that the One-Shot® Method is the chance you were waiting for.

Hereafter is the article published by the Il Sole 24 Ore that reports on TJ’s investment operation in Italy.Kind regards

Giovanni Affinita,

Executive Director and Member of the Board of Directors

If you’d like to find out more on the parts that were already patented with the One-Shot® Method and on all the applications that can be advantageous for your work, fill in the form below.

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