Is it possible to grow 34% compared to the pre-Covid situation by dealing in Italy with powertrain systems in a car market that lost 24% in the same period? “Yes, you can if you invest everything in innovation”, replies Dino Brancale, CEO of AVL Italia, arm of the largest independent company in the world specialized in the development, simulation and testing of powertrain systems and solutions for green mobility, presenting the 2021 results: 130 million euros in turnover, with an increase of more than 18% compared to 110 million in 2020 and 34% compared to 97 million in 2019. And the forecast of another excellent budget in sight, for this 2022, thanks the start-up of the business unit which in Cavriago di Reggio Emilia will handle the tests on electric batteries for the whole group and the intensification of activities related to software and cybersecurity.
The new Technical Research Center
“In 2021 we consolidated the investments made in the last five years, 30 million in total, which involved equipment, machinery, property and new hires”, explains Cristiano Auriemma, financial director of AVL Italia, 300 employees in Italy (11 thousand at the level of group) between the two offices in Turin and Cavriago, where the Technical Research Center is present, a cutting-edge jewel in terms of powertrain technology. And it is here, in the heart of the Emilian motor valley, that the project for a new division dedicated to the large-scale production of products is taking shape that will make it possible to reduce the time required to perform climate tests on battery cells for the automotive sector by 30%: an investment of 12 million euros, partly supported by Mise and the Emilia-Romagna Region, for a new area of one thousand square meters and at least twenty scheduled recruitments among technicians and engineers. “The collapse of the automotive market is linked to the sales of combustion engines, but for those like us who carry out 60-70% of their research activities on innovative frontiers such as electricity and hydrogen, the scenario continues to be very interesting”, underlines Brancale . Specifying, however, that in a geopolitical scenario that has cleaned up short-term environmentalist utopias, there is room for development not only for hydrogen and electricity but also for new internal combustion solutions (producing an electric car produces more CO2 than building one traditional and if the e-car is powered by fossil sources it pollutes even more throughout its life cycle, a nonsense). AVL Italia’s order book will be filled not only by the new products for the Gigafactory, but by the software area dedicated to the electric-electronic architectures of the cars and cybersecurity. “Two segments for which we are planning 34 hires, but these are very difficult profiles to find on the market”, concludes the CEO. Which, like many suppliers in the motor valley, has already started work on the Sino-American Silk-FAW project of a mega-factory of electric super sports cars in Reggio Emilia, and is waiting to see if and when it will take off.