On Thursday morning, at a special news conference held at the Goodyear Tires Innovation Center in Colmar Berg, the creation of a new Luxembourg Automotive Campus was announced.

Present were Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy, Etienne Schneider, along with Goodyear EMEA Business CEO Jean-Claude Kihn, IEE Luxembourg CEO, Michel Witte, as well as Jos Schummer, Mayor of Bissen, where the new campus will be located on the 14 hectare site of the old Goodyear wire plant in Bousbierg.

The plan is to build a new automotive campus which will become a centre of expertise in automotive technologies, particularly in sensing equipment, autonomous driving technologies and tyres. Eventually it is anticipated that up to 4,000 people will work there for 30 or more high-tech companies.

One of the key elements is sharing, not only of ideas, but particularly of high cost resources such as test tracks, R&D equipment, building and laboratory infrastructures, conference, catering and exhibition spaces.

The Luxembourg government will purchase the site as soon as the existing buildings have been demolished by Goodyear, and the target is for both IEE and Goodyear’s own Innovation Center to move in to the campus in the 3rd or 4th quarter 2018 with some 1,600 workers between them.

Jos Schummer, mayor of the municipality of Bissen, explained that the new A7 (Nordstrooss) motorway link means that major transportation links are now right on the doorstep, and that by re-using the existing Bousbierg industrial site, any negative impact on the inhabitants of Bissen will be kept to a minimum, while the inward investment that will come with the project will only be to the benefit of the municipality.

For Goodyear, Jean-Claude Kihn explained that his company had moved from a closed to an open innovation methodology (working with technology partners) several years ago, so this is a logical further step along this same path, and Michel Witte, for IEE spoke of the synergies that will come from this move, how important it is for the growth of his company, and his pride in the fact that IEE will be the first residents of the new campus in 2018.

Minister Schneider said that “by centralising these R&D activities, the Luxembourg Automotive Campus will provide professional automotive equipment and service providers with new tools and infrastructure, enabling them to remain dynamic, and thus also innovative and competitive in a market in constant evolution”.

After the presentation, Minister Schneider confirmed to The Luxembourg Chronicle that this project is very much at the core of the government’s thinking for the diversification of the Luxembourgish economy beyond financial into ICT and automotive sectors. He was impressed by his recent visit to a similar centre in Bilbao, and stressed that as Luxembourg falls effectively into an intersection between most of the main automotive centres in Europe, there is no reason why this part of the economy should not continue to grow (ed: from its current €1.5 billion base) over the coming years.

Photos (top): Etienne Schneider, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy; (below): Jean-Claude Kihn, Goodyear