I cannot believe we are already on day 5! This is one of the least busy days yet one of the most important. Why? Because we visited Forvia, the company that I was chosen to analyze.

First, the food. My diet today (and yesterday) is consisting of way too much Bavarian pretzels and too little of literally everything else. They’re everywhere, cheap or free, and they’re sooo good! I was offered Weiẞwirst, but the smell was REALLY bad to me in the same way that bacon smells absolutely horrible to me, so I didn’t have any urge to try it.

Now, let’s get into the meat of the blog post. Forvia is the largest company out of all the companies we are visiting, with over 150,000 employees worldwide. It is also the only truly public company on the list as well, as Grob and Hoerbiger are privately owned and Audi is a subsidiary of VW. Forvia is the result of a merger between Faurecia and Hella in 2022. Faurecia focuses on seating, interiors, clean mobility, and electronics of cars, while Hella is more focused on lifecycle solutions, lighting, and electronics of cars.

The plant I visited today falls under Faurecia’s clean mobility sector. The name is a bit of a misnomer, because it actually refers to a combination of exhaust systems and a new focus on Hydrogen powered vehicles. The plant I visited was of the old sort, because it was centered around various exhaust systems, such as mufflers, gas recirculation for lower emissions, diesel particulate filters, and the coolest one: The whole exhaust system for the Porsche 911 GT3, which is basically a supercar, considering that the car starts at $170K and rivals entry-level McLarens and Ferarris.

Forvia’s future seems okay for the most part, considering how much of the company is focused on elements of cars that won’t change much with a trend towards electrification, such as interiors, seating, and lighting. The electronics segment will most likely boom as we see a shift towards self-driving cars. The lifecycle solutions segment may decline due to cars being less repairable, but it might also rise due to this reason or something else, I don’t really know. What I am concerned about is the clean mobility segment.

With the internal combustion engine on the decline, there will be reduced demand for exhaust systems, and Hydrogen powered cars are unproven on the market despite years of effort. Much of Forvia’s focus in Hydrogen deals with the tanks that store Hydrogen, used mostly in heavy-duty vehicles, and Forvia is diversifying outside of the automobile industry developing large-scale Hydrogen tanks for industrial applications such as data centers or energy storage. However, Forvia is somewhat late to the Hydrogen party, and even with plenty of innovation, they are behind due to the costs of making Hydrogen tanks. With enough additional innovation and plenty of luck with the gamble of how much the market will demand Hydrogen with the explosive growth of battery electric vehicles since 2018, this segment could see growth, but I’m gonna bet that it’s gonna decline in the medium-term future. But it might just be worth it in the long term.