I visited last month the Valeo development centre at Angers, France, to meet Arnaud Perrotin. He’s the R&D Head of North Europe for the Valeo Lighting Systems organisation. I was impressed by the change in the decade since I retired from Valeo—very often I worked here at this development centre, and since that time there’s been enormous change due to the rapid growth of the company’s activity.
Valeo Lighting Systems’ organisation in Europe has two regional operations. The North Europe RO covers France (Angers, Blois, Sens), Poland, and Italy. The South Europe RO covers Spain, Poland, and Romania.
This In-depth report is focused on the North Europe RO and mainly Angers, which is the location of the development centre and the production plant. Sales have increased recently, and the NERO now produces a large proportion of all VLS products. NERO delivers their production to a large roster of carmakers:
PSA Peugeot-Citroën, Volvo, Renault-Nissan, Toyota, Ford, Fiat Group and more. Building on their high-volume sales to generalist companies, NERO aims to extend their development to premium cars: Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo, and others.
The R&D department has 300 engineers, able to handle a large number of projects simultaneously. The company is very much involved in lighting performance, with all engineering networks available in situ. They strongly follow the achievements of works developed by the research teams in Bobigny, and the optics development teams in Martos, Seymour, Japan and China.