CESA 2012 Interview : Guillaume Devauchelle (Valeo) part 1

For CESA 2012, Guillaume Devauchelle, R&D director at Valeo, speaks about the new Vedecom Institute in Paris area.

"In a context of unprecedented global change in both the demand for and use of personal transportation, the Vedecom Institute aims to increase the energy efficiency of personal transport and to decrease the presence of harmful emissions in priority urban and suburban areas, by inventing new mobilities at the same time as new vehicles.

No industrial company, no services operator, however powerful, will be able to achieve this on his own. It requires the automobile manufacturers and suppliers, the higher education and research establishments, the territorial collectivities, the mobility operators, the infrastructure engineering companies and managers, the city planners, the economists, the sociologists to work together in inventing and deploying these new mobility systems. VeDeCoM creates such a strategic alliance, for the first time in the world.


The entire car industry is reaching out to stakeholders in mobility systems, information services, and energy sectors. Vedecom will bring together a unique set of global specialists with multi-disciplinary skills, at the same time and in the same place, providing them with the environment and structure so needed by a fledgling industrial sector with a bright future.

It is a threefold programme, electrification of vehicules, connectivity and driving delegation, architecture and services which aims at addressing the whole system issues, in a multidisciplinary manner: design of new vehicles, design of new ways of drives, from assisted driving to automatic driving, design of new technology blocks, from mechatronics power traction, security controls and telecom assisted connectivity, offering best potential for massive new system introduction, a mandatory objective for having the required impact on energy consumption. Demonstrations, on annual basis, also show progress and test user acceptance. The Vedecom Institute is a brand new organization that is set to become a benchmark in the blossoming sustainable personal mobility sector, in order to get an energy reduction by at least a factor of 2 over the next 10 years.

Vedecom displays a technological reference to support the design and implementation of the “Grand Paris”. Being located in the Satory region at the north of the “Plateau de Saclay”, VeDeCoM is already asked to participate to the definition of new “eco-quartiers” around the new Grand Paris metro stations in this area. The new systems will serve as demonstrators and later on as benchmarks for the whole public transportation network, in Paris and worldwide, providing excellent grounds for companies to export their experience, and for researchers to attract students and high level personalities in France".

To be continued with next Valeo and the connected car...