WABCO Holdings Inc. (WBC) CEO Jacques Esculier says the company is planning to spend $17 million over the coming year to build a 145,000-square foot manufacturing facility in Charleston, S.C. He says management decided to invest in the new facility because of opportunities it has identified in the U.S.
“Contrary to the automotive world, where the level of technology used in a car built or assembled in China versus Europe or America is very similar, it’s exactly the opposite in the world of commercial vehicles,” Esculier says. “If you look at a truck in Europe, there is about $3,000 of addressable market for our products and systems. If you look at the U.S. market, it goes down to about $1,000 per vehicle, and if you look at emerging markets like India and China, it goes down to $300 per vehicle of potential revenues of our technologies, and our technologies are obviously advanced technologies.”
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However, Esculier says those gaps are closing due to changing safety regulations. For the moment, the company is focusing on what Esculier calls “interesting opportunities” in the U.S.
“For example, we are increasingly selling our automated manual transmission technology, which optimizes and automates the shifting of gear,” he says. “Traditionally, you shift gear by hand in a truck. With this AMT technology — which has been, by the way, a standard in Europe for years — it’s automated and optimized. It makes driving a truck much easier, meaning that the drivers that customers hire don’t have to be incredibly experienced, and that’s very valuable in a world like it is today with a shortage of experienced drivers.”
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