By George Guimarães | 7/5/23 | Translated by Jorge Meditsch
After just one and a half year after creating its global open innovation and partnership with startups program, Stellantis is already getting the first results in Brazil.
Fomented by Stellantis Ventures, the group’s venture capital fund that has 300 million euros for the world program, the initiative already has a 3.5 thousand startup database for relationships, discussion and projects and 110 closed contracts, some already implemented.
“In South America, we have 30 contracts, about the same as in Europe. This shows our region’s innovation potential”, asserts Marina Lima, Stellantis’ Open Innovation coordinator in Latin America.
She emphasizes that, in Brazil, Ventures Studio, the group’s relationship arm with startups, has as its main channels the Cubo Itaú, in São Paulo, and FiemgLab4.0, in Belo Horizonte, aligned to ten other incubators in Italy, France, the United States, India, Sweden and Israel.
“Startups are key to achieving our Dare Foward 2030 ambitions”, stresses Marina, referring to Stellantis’s world strategic plan that aims to make the more than one hundred years old vehicle manufacturer an intelligent mobility developer and provider, clean and carbon-neutral by 2038.
Peugeot’s electric vehicle nano location service Flou is one of Brazil’s first projects of the open innovation program. Launched at the end of last year in São Paulo, it was developed by UCorp, a startup founded in 2019, which created an online platform for booking, payment and recharge of the models e-2008 and e-208.
After eight months, the Flou already had 15 thousand downloads and nearly four thousand rentals with 10 hours on average. One of the differences – and advantages – of the service that costs R$ 0.39 per minute and charges an initial fee of R$ 9.00 is the dynamic charging: the cost per minute is lower when the car is parked or recharging.
Based on the experience’s positive results, the partners study expanding it to other cities and improving the system, which still requires taking and returning the vehicle in a few fixed points.
Besides expanding the number of points by including the brand’s dealerships, there are studies to allow the user to leave the vehicle after use in a defined city region.
Stellantis is also benefiting from startup projects that improve its internal activities, such as AutoU’s, which developed a game to help in training, integration and cooperation between all employee levels and also emphasizes and spreads the company’s strategic values.
A pilot experience last year had the participation of 22 thousand people and high adherence even in areas where the use of smartphones and computers is limited, such as manufacturing.
A technological tool created by Embeddo, another Brazilian startup, was adopted in the assembly line. For three months, the door assemblers for vehicles produced in the Porto Real plant no longer have to “guess” the best adjustment.
Provoked by Stellantis, the partner developed software and hardware for a system that analyses the efforts at doors closing, which the worker had subjectively defined over more than one century in the automotive industry.
Using sensor information and data analysis, Embeddo’s tool can establish the ideal parameters for better customer evaluation and perception. The technology should be adopted soon in other Stellantis plants.
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