The two automotive component suppliers Hella (Lippstadt / Germany; www.hella.com) and Minth (Ningbo, Zhejiang / China; www.minthgroup.com) have agreed to set up a joint venture under the name Hella Minth Jiaxing Automotive Parts with the aim of driving development, production and marketing of radomes and illuminated logos. Radomes are transparent covers for radar systems and can be manufactured from various plastics such as polycarbonate. Both companies already have activities in this field.

The JV will be funded by both partners in equal shares and based in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, at one of Minth’s existing production facilities. Initially, the capacity is aimed to be around 1m units a year but, as Hella says, the project is designed so that this can be continuously expanded. At present, 80 people are employed at Jiaxing, working in injection moulding as well as other processes such as surface coating and metallising. Hella Minth Jiaxing is to be internationally aligned but will initially focus on the Chinese car market. Subject to the approval of the relevant antitrust authorities, the JV is scheduled to start operations in autumn 2020. In the medium term, sales are expected to be in the mid-double-digit million euro range.

Hella reported organic growth in 2019, but March 2020 saw drastic cost-cutting measures, implementation of short-time working and a revision of its forecast for fiscal 2019/2020 (see Plasteurope.com of 23.03.2020), which ended in May. But even that was unable to prevent the need back in May to take into account non-cash impairment charges of around EUR 500m (see Plasteurope.com of 04.06.2020). Against this background, the joint venture now represents an investment in future technologies. “With the increasing market penetration of radar-based driver assistance systems, the demand for radomes will continue to rise,” said Frank Huber, responsible for Hella’s Automotive Lighting. Radomes offer vehicle manufacturers a variety of differentiation possibilities, he said, because, just like logos, they can be staged in different ways.

Hella is a stock market-listed family company for lighting systems and car electronics with over 125 sites in around 35 countries. Its core target group is made up of the automotive industry and the aftermarket. With 39,000 employees, it posted sales in fiscal 2018/2019 of EUR 7 bn. Its JV partner Minth is a popular player in the industry. Back in 2016, US automotive parts supplier Haartz (Acton, Massachusetts; www.haartz.com) founded a joint venture with Minth for manufacturing TPO film and interior parts (see Plasteurope.com of 19.04.2016).