As the 2024 Shanghai Electronics Show in Munich approaches, Sun Xiaoguang, vice president and general manager of TE Connectivity’s automotive business unit in China, is getting busier.

In recent years, the automotive industry has undergone tremendous technological change, the most obvious performance of electrification and intelligence, which is also TE’s main connector product innovation. The Swiss company, which manufactures more than 213 billion products annually and has sales of $16 billion in 2023, has been in the Chinese market for more than 35 years. By establishing a research and development center, production base and sales network in China, TE can not only better meet the needs of Chinese customers, provide platform and customized solutions, but also start to go overseas with the experience of advanced manufacturing in Chinese factories and Chinese local suppliers.

9907-029 “We understand the importance of the Chinese market and have always made localization one of our core strategies.” Referring to the Munich Electronics Fair, Sun Xiaoguang said that “in addition to innovation, the most important thing to show is the spirit of our team.”

Win-win with the industrial chain

The automotive electronics industry has developed very fast in recent years, which makes many people feel “volume”, but Sun Xiaoguang has a different opinion, “What is volume?” It is to lower your head and only do what is in front of you, and think too little from the manufacturing value dimension of the entire industry.”

TE’s business success story in China can be summarized in the automotive division as deepening localization services, growing together with Chinese Oems, and achieving a win-win industry chain.

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He took the 0.19mm multi-win composite line at this exhibition as an example to show that differentiated competition is the starting point to deepen localization services, and this product, which is jointly developed and verified with domestic mainstream car companies, is still an excellent case to reflect the mentality of multi-win to solve industry problems.

According to the ICSG International Copper Research Association, China accounts for 54% of global copper demand, and 77% of copper demand depends on imports. In the automotive low-voltage wiring harness signal circuit, 0.35mm copper wire is still the mainstream solution of the vehicle signal circuit, accounting for about 80% according to the prediction of TE electronics.

Although copper wire has better power performance, the weight of copper wire with the same performance parameters is about 1.3-1.4 times that of aluminum wire. The extra weight is already a factor that has to be considered for the mileage that will be contested in the mile, not to mention the higher price of copper. As a result, TE’s latest multi-win composite wire solution, launched in 9907-029 2024, addresses the pain points of existing low-voltage wire solutions.

With a fully verified terminal crimping scheme, the 0.19mm multi-win composite line follows the mature production line and process, and minimization of industry chain investment, ideally it can successfully reduce the copper of the low-voltage wire harness of the entire vehicle by about 60%, reduce the weight by 37%, and reduce the carbon emissions of the bicycle by about 20kg per year (based on the total estimate of the production end and the annual driving of about 10,000 km). Bring significant cost savings.

“We found that the biggest difficulty of aluminum-replaced copper products is welding, and welding in the automotive industry requires higher technical requirements. With tens of millions of cars leaving the factory every year, we need to make sure that every component works properly and that if something goes wrong, it can be fixed quickly.” Sun Xiaoguang therefore requires the display of products at the same time also show the entire ecosystem, including welding suppliers, so that customers’ cognition from the purchase of a connector product to expand to the technology and safety behind, and promote the entire automotive industry chain to energy-saving and low-carbon.