ZF acquires stake in engineering services provider ASAP

With this move, the company is pursuing its strategy of securing additional resources for autonomous driving and e-mobility in order to better meet the ever growing demands from customers in these areas.

"As an established development partner, ASAP Group has extensive expertise in the areas of autonomous driving, e-mobility, connected cars and vehicle software," says Torsten Gollewski, general manager of Zukunft Ventures GmbH and head of ZF's Advanced Development department. "This participation allows us access to human resources from an outstanding engineering services provider with extensive industry experience and special expertise in testing and validation. We look forward to working with the team at ASAP in order to develop forward-looking mobility solutions for series production."

Michael Neisen, chairman of the Executive Board at ASAP, said: "Autonomous driving and e-mobility are the dominant trends in the automotive industry which we focused on intensively in recent years. With ZF Friedrichshafen AG, one of the world's largest automotive suppliers, we have a partner at our side with whom we will further advance these future technologies."

By establishing strategic partnerships and equity stakes under the umbrella of Zukunft Ventures GmbH, ZF has significantly expanded its development capabilities in the area of autonomous driving in recent years.

The now agreed share is also in line with ZF's strategy of significantly strengthening the company's electromobility and autonomous driving expertise in the areas of software and validation.

ZF's Chief Executive Officer Wolf-Henning Scheider recently announced at the IAA Commercial Vehicles trade show that ZF will be investing some €12 billion ($13.92 billion) in these two areas alone over the next five years.