Over the next four years, ZF will invest a total of €800 million (US$910 million) in Saarbrücken, the lead location of ZF’s transmission technology. With this investment, the location will be made fit for the transition from conventional to electric car drives.

The share of hybrid drives in production will increase tenfold over the next few years from five to 50 percent.

—Wolf-Henning Scheider, CEO of ZF Friedrichshafen AG

ZF is investing more than €3 billion (US$3.4 billion) worldwide in new products and its production network for transmission technology.

If the development towards pure electromobility progresses as currently forecast in several studies, sales and thus also the workforce at the Saarbrücken plant will, however, decline in the long term. In view of this development, ZF has launched a number of activities in Saarbrücken that are intended to significantly increase the plant’s international competitiveness.

These include, for example, a whole series of IoT projects. At the same time, these initiatives use artificial intelligence (AI) to provide quick and valuable decision-making aids for employees and thus increase efficiency.