DVN Interview: Valeo Visibility President Maurizio Martinelli

Maurizio Martinelli is President of Valeo’s Visibility Systems business group, which designs and manufactures innovative and high-performance lighting systems; wipers, and sensor cleaning systems.

He holds a master’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Politecnico of Milan, and began his career in commercial aviation before entering the automotive business in 1994 with Allied Signal’s automotive braking division and then with Bosch, where he held various positions in quality and manufacturing before becoming director of North Italy Operations.

He joined Valeo in 2000 as the lighting systems Italy division general manager, before moving to France to take charge of North Europe Lighting Systems operations in 2005. In 2008 he was appointed vice-president of the engine cooling branch, and then from 2010 of the thermal powertrain systems product group. In 2011, on top of this assignment, he was appointed group president for Italy and group customer director for Fiat-Iveco.

In 2012, Martinelli became VP of the lighting systems product group and Visibility Systems Business Group President since 2014. He kindly shared his thoughts with us for this DVN-exclusive interview:

DVN: We’re in a time of great change, through sustainability/climate change; Covid outbreaks and lockdowns in China; Russia’s war on Ukraine; semiconductor shortages, and inflation everywhere. How do you see lighting activity and Valeo visibility in 2025 versus 2021?

Maurizio Martinelli:?Indeed a time of challenges, managing the inflation: raw materials, energy, transports and wages costs. In this market, lighting is and remains an attractive business. Market is foreseen to grow more than car production in the next few years even if this is not homogeneous across continents. Lighting keeps growing and expanding beyond the classic front and rear lamps thanks to increased functionalities and expanding in front and rear fascia, interior lighting and nearfield projection. So I am convinced that the future of lighting continues to be bright. And big change with Magna buying Olsa; LG buying ZKW; KKR buying Magneti Marelli; Faurecia buying Hella; PO buying Varroc and AMS shows the lighting business remains an attractive market that is expanding and occupying more space in the cars.?

DVN: How do you see the future of automotive lighting with the arrival of EVs and AVs?

M.M.:?We see it as a great future. Indeed, electrification and autonomous cars have a positive impact on our business. Car makers want to differentiate EVs and AV from conventional ones and are using the disappearance of the front grille to create new signatures. Moreover, lighting remains a matter of performance, style and safety. These 3 factors make lighting unavoidable for automakers.?Lighting is everywhere!

DVN: How do you handle sustainability and carbon neutrality?

M.M.:?Our group is very engaged on this matter: By 2030, Valeo’s emissions will fall by 45 per cent compared to 2019 across our entire value chain, by integrating suppliers, operational activities and the end-use of our products. By 2050, Valeo will have achieved carbon neutrality in all operational activities and from our suppliers around the world, and full carbon neutrality (including end-use of our products) in Europe. Valeo also are signatory to the “Business Ambition for 1.5°C” campaign, which brings together companies committed to carbon neutrality by 2050 using the strict framework of the Science Based Targets initiative. As you can see, we are deeply engaged, and Valeo Lighting systems is not lagging behind. We are actively in all scopes to achieve our internal and customer targets.

DVN: You started working on interior lighting a decade ago. What is your feedback on this activity today and in the next years?

M.M.:?With a 2030 market today estimated at some billions of euros, interior lighting is moving from simple monochromatic ambient lighting and reading lamps to more complex systems, which are driving the growth. This dynamic is mainly pulled by China and Europe. Our product portfolio focuses on these new highly visible solutions: from smart LEDs to create animation and communications, but also light engines for backlight systems. For the latter, we’ve set up an agreement with Motherson in order to deliver complete systems from light to interior decorations. Such complex systems request high electronics expertise (from software to hardware, and architecture) to master the animations and manage it throughout the cockpit in a timely manner. This is Valeo’s lighting activity DNA.

DVN: DVN forecasts the trend of whole-front illumination, including grilles. What are your thoughts on the subject?

M.M.:?Sure we see this trend and we already booked a couple of businesses, both illuminated grilles and front central area. This is definitely part of our expertise and strategy. Depending on the customer, we are offering solutions alone or with partners. As raised in the recent DVN report you published in July we agree with your growth predictions. We are performing well in this domain with significant 2022 key vehicles awards that confirm that we own the competences to make it a reality.

DVN: We have a facelift every 3.5 years with a very high R&D and investment cost. Do you think this trend will continue? And if not, what is the proposal to decrease costs?

M.M.:?I do not think this trend will change dramatically. Lighting is a key differentiator thanks to his contribution to style and our customers seek for differentiation and consequently new models that look different from previous one. We are continuously working at reducing cost while improving performance and robustness. One of the main tools is the platform, this is a strong tool to reduce development costs but also investment.

DVN: What about the development time for a project?

M.M.:?Overall, we are facing a constant increase of complexity translated into an explosion of product requirements, on which we have to add new and relevant demand like cybersecurity, At the end, this is leading to a strong increase of development hours. But on the other hand, we do have some customers asking to reduce development times from an average of three years to an average of 18 months, and we also did it. This is the contradiction we deal with more and more. So yes, we have reduced our development time in the last years, and we are continuously revisiting our development processes to remain competitive while providing robust products: Within Valeo group, we have developed a platform approach to do exactly this.?

DVN: We are seeing more vehicle/concept cars with edge-to-edge front and rear lighting. Will it be a new standard?

M.M.:?Difficult to say, the style is very appealing, the space very interesting to provide communicative lighting but what about in case of a crash? What about the costs to repair? insurance premium? however the trend is visible, and we are prepared to answer. The edge to edge front and rear signaling are already visible on new vehicles especially in China and are expanding across automaker platforms. From our vision this trend will probably continue to grow. Nevertheless, as you know, style trends can move quickly and our customers want to keep their own identity.

DVN: How do you see the displays in the front and in the rear of the car to communicate?

M.M.:?Increasing. Communication is expected on the market for two main reasons: First one being a growing need for personal car customisation with increased animation capabilities, for welcome and goodbye scenarios as well as evolving signatures. Second one is linked to automated vehicle progress and the need for them to communicate about intentions or status to other road users. Display is one of the solutions including several possible technologies. Certain are becoming more and more mature. Today’s main blocker is regulation, not allowing real “in motion” communication. It will need to evolve alongside technology?

DVN: Same questions with logos.

M.M.:?Illuminated logo deployment is linked to related regulation already. Applications have been authorised in America; China, and Japan. Recent evolution in ECE will be made possible as well for 2023. This is becoming the new signature of many vehicles with a direct link to appliqué and grille presence.?

DVN: and what about lighting in the side for communication and for fun (farewell/welcome)?

M.M.:?What started as a projected convenience light when approaching the vehicle is now strongly contributing to the brand signature with side projection of pattern. Our teams are developing solutions enabling moving patterns or the capability to change the pattern. Chinese consumers are very keen on such solutions, and China is now leading the trend with Europe. On the ground projection will evolve to address safety functionalities targeting other road users and especially new mobility and vulnerable road users. However, as the lighting is spreading on both front and rear ends, designers are now exploring lighting on the sides of the car body, opening further new lighting territories/ playgrounds.?

DVN: We now have ADB matrix with 6 to 20 segments, ADB arrow with 80-100 LEDs or miniLEDs, ADB with a thousand microLEDs, and ADB with a million LEDs. Sure, applications are different but how do you manage these LED possibilities?

M.M.:?ADB is clearly a great move toward safety, and I am very pleased about the homologation in North America. Even so, I consider it a pity that US regulators did not capitalise on what is done in other continents, more advanced in ADB technology. As you say, there are different applications calling for different technical solutions. We have built our roadmap to answer the market demand and have clearly made choices as we cannot develop all kinds of combinations. We have the chance to work with many different clients in all regions. Based on all discussions with them, we set the best compromise of needs to build the best cost/performance solution. Our platform organisation is able to offer various solutions from standard modules to customer specific solutions when needed. Nevertheless, we remain a lighting company and even if we have modules on the shelf we believe in selling the full lighting systems, as in this way we are able to provide a real tailor made answer to our customer needs.

DVN: How do you see the future of μLED?

M.M.:?μLED has a future as this technology is much more affordable than DMD and allows very high definition ADB. As said before, this is a big step for safety. In regard to HD projection, the future depends first from the regulation. So far, very few symbols are allowed. To me, HD projection will have a great future as long as it will contribute to increasing safety for passengers but also for the environment when speaking about autonomous vehicles.

DVN: Are there new trends at the rear of the vehicle and rear lamps?

M.M.:?So far signature remains the major trend driven by the style and the will of the automakers to differentiate each brand. Valeo are developing a lot of new technologies allowing designers to design very unique signatures and we are continuously investing to push the boundaries, always a step ahead. We also see the same phenomenon between the front and the rear, light extending to the whole rear fascia.?This said, we see a clear move to digitalisation where the rear lighting is also used to communicate with the environment. In this domain, we are among the leaders on personalisation and welcome solutions thanks to the OLED technology. We will capitalise on this OLED leadership to create mass adoption.?

DVN: Software will have more and more importance in lighting. Do you think OTA updates will create a new business for lighting?

M.M.:?OTA is opening opportunities and enables us to create a revenue model that is based on services. There are already some car makers experimenting successfully with this business model on lighting features. According to Gartner analysts, half of the top 10 global automakers will offer unlocks and capability upgrades via software updates by 2023. Lighting is becoming digital with HD headlamp, with displays on the rear and projection system on the side and inside the vehicle; this is definitely creating opportunities for new services. Valeo is at the forefront in software, with a longstanding area of expertise and more than 6,000 software and systems engineers.

DVN: China has closed off since the Covid pandemic and has not reopened yet. Does that cloud the prospects in the Chinese market?

M.M.:?We see plenty of opportunities for us and we are prepared to catch them. Chinese automakers and New Chinese players are clearly more and more trendsetters in the lighting universe, creating their own identity and their own lighting language for the exterior and for the interior. We aim to more than double our sales in China within the next five years, Valeo will be a strong contributor to the Chinese automotive market growth.?We are prepared to strengthen our market share, at first following our traditional customers but also working with new players. China expect to reach up to 40 per cent of electric vehicles by 2030 and as well they will potentially become the autonomous driving epicentre. so we see potential growth both for Lighting and sensor cleaning systems.

A last word about pandemic: clearly China has been temporarily impacted by their “Covid 0” approach, however the country is restarting and they will be very fast to recover, as we have already seen in the past.

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