Continental announced it will build a new plant in New Braunfels, Texas to expand its capacity for the production of radar sensors.
“Advanced driver assistance systems save lives. Continental is one of the world’s market leaders in this area. We are benefiting from steadily increasing fitment rates in new vehicles. And in the future, too, we are anticipating major growth opportunities,” said Frank Jourdan, member of the Continental Executive Board responsible for Autonomous Mobility and Safety. “Over the next five years, we are planning further investments in the high triple-digit million Euro range in the areas of assisted and automated driving. The capacity expansion in New Braunfels is part of our growth strategy.”
Continental plans to invest about €100 million (approximately $109.31 million) over the next three years to build the plant on a 20,000 square meter site (almost five-acre site) in New Braunfels, a city about 40 miles northwest of San Antonio, Continental says. The groundbreaking ceremony is planned for mid-2020 with production set to start in 2021.
The plant will add 130 new jobs in the region in addition to the 450 jobs that exist at Continental’s Automotive Systems Plant in Seguin, Texas, about 16 miles from New Braunfels, Continental says.
American car manufacturers use Continental’s radar sensors for technologies such as emergency brake assist and adaptive cruise control, according to the company. Technologies tailored specifically to the U.S. market, such as blind-spot monitoring for passenger cars with trailers (Trailer Length Detection and Trailer Merge Assist), which first went into series production in 2018 in the Dodge Ram 1500, are also based on radar sensors. In addition to New Braunfels, Continental is also represented in the Other Continental offices in the U.S. dedicated to the development of ADAS sensors include Auburn Hills near Detroit and Santa Barbara, California, where the company develops Lidar technologies.
