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Product development
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Anticipating what the market wants
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Automotive innovation at Faurecia serves two strategic areas in the motor market: creating value for the end customer and optimizing environmental performance. The group's R&D Department spearheads 200 innovation projects involving car components and modules every year. Faurecia registered over 300 patents in 2008.
Cutting-edge design: a driving force for solutions
After identifying trends among automakers and motorists, Faurecia's designers devise tangible conceptual proposals for development-ready automotive solutions. Innovations are regularly discussed with manufacturers.
Innovating for comfort, safety and perceived quality
Faurecia's R&D team develops comfortable, modular and air-conditioned seats offering optimal safety, shock-absorbing doors and modular cockpits. The group breaks new ground in terms of the materials used, the quality of the fit and the upholstery, all of which generate perceived quality whatever the cars’ range. Faurecia's R&D team works on the Human-Machine Interface (HMI) between the vehicle's occupants and the embedded electronic systems or mobile devices. The R&D Department also works on solutions to best absorb the energy resulting from head-on impacts, while increasing the vehicle's prestige through the assembly and finish quality (such as bumper paint).
A leader in environmental performance
Faurecia takes account of sustainable development issues before products and solutions have even left the drawing board. Its designers use a special software package to calculate the environmental footprint of the materials used. As part of its Light Attitude approach, the group blazes a new trail in reducing vehicle weight, including dashboards without metal cross-members, laser beam welding, thinner seats without any loss in performance, and the "Fiber-molded process" technology that cuts the weight of soundproofing materials by 30%. Faurecia, co-inventor of the Diesel Particulate Filter along with PSA Peugeot-Citroën, also develops emissions control technologies (treatment of nitrogen oxides - NOx).
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