Comau, here are the chinoiserie by Stellantis
Comau announces a high-tech project for the automation of the production of Nio, the Chinese electric car brand. Stellantis wants the spin-off of the Turin company, but the Fim-Cisl asks for the intervention of the golden power. All the details
Comau, a Turin-based industrial automation company wholly owned by the Stellantis automotive group, today announced a project to automate the production of the upcoming electric traction systems of NIO, one of China's leading electric vehicle companies.
Last month the European Commission announced the opening of an anti-subsidy investigation into electric cars from China which could lead to the imposition of tariffs. President Ursula von der Leyen had said that the price of Chinese battery-powered vehicles “is kept artificially low by huge state subsidies. This distorts our market."
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT COMAU'S PROJECT FOR NIO
The system developed by Comau concerns motors, gearboxes, inverters and magnetos and is capable of supporting an annual manufacturing capacity of one million units: it will be used for NIO's electric sedans, SUVs and coupés, as well as for some models of its ALPS brand.
As explained by the Turin company, its "highly automated production environment" is equipped with vision-guided 3D robots; self-driving vehicles for material replenishment and tool loading; Quadnocular stereovision 3D cameras.
“To further increase the flexibility of the production line and allow the in-line co-production of the two electric propulsion systems,” explained CEO Pietro Gorlier, “Comau has developed in collaboration with the NIO e-drive team a new adapter with zero-point positioner”.
GOLDEN POWER ON COMAU?
Stellantis, which controls Comau, intends to proceed with the spin-off of the company , which has actually been talked about for some time. “At the time of the first spin-off plans”, in 2019, Corriere della Sera recently wrote, “Stellantis seemed intent on placing 70% of Comau on the market, distributing the remaining 30% among its shareholders. At the time, analysts had imagined a wide valuation range, between 300 million and 1 billion." According to Il Sole 24 Ore “there was talk of a valuation of around 2 billion euros. Then the operation was put on standby, subordinated by the pandemic and other priorities."
Plans for the spin-off have restarted and Stellantis could make a decision by the end of the year.
Ferdinando Uiliano, national secretary of the Fim-Cisl, announced that he had asked the government to consider using the golden power to protect Comau. Golden power refers to those special powers that the executive can use to protect the national interest in strategic sectors, for example by blocking agreements or imposing certain conditions: recently the regulatory instrument was used on Pirelli , to protect some strategic technologies and limit the role of the Chinese shareholder Sinochem.
“We are concerned that this important reality in the robotics, industrial automation and e-mobility sector, which employs around seven hundred employees and 3,500 worldwide,” said Uiliano, “could be sold to foreign companies with the obvious risk of further impoverishing the research and development heritage in our country".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/comau-nio-golden-power/ on Wed, 11 Oct 2023 14:16:33 +0000.