Ventec: Eye on the Future, with Automotive and Lighting Front and Center

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

Michels: Our forecast for next year is that we think that we can increase by another 50%. Polyimide used to be our high-quality product driving us; now thermal management is clearly the superstar. This is the story. This is where Ventec has a good amount of product where we have nice three, five, or seven percent, and still we outperform the market when we talk about our growth, but for the IMS, as I said, we are in an area of 50% growth. So, within two or three years I wouldn't be surprised if we have 25% of our business in thermal management. It could be even higher.

Mauve: Our guys in R&D have gained a lot of knowledge from their experience with polyimide—how to handle the resin system. It incorporates fillers, filtration, magnetic and standard, you know how to mix the resin system, how to make it better, and you learn a lot. And then, you can reproduce that and make a very high-tech and high-quality product. Nothing is a surprise.

Michels: I think one of the reasons why we are so successful with this is we are a medium-sized laminator. We understand the challenges, and we have adapted our R&D. Also, we are in China. We are a Taiwanese company, as most people know. We have, meanwhile, more than 7% of our workforce in R&D. We are an R&D-driven company. That's why we have success, because we saw the challenge, and we said, "Okay, we’re going to ride the wave. Let’s do it.” So, we invested.

Goldman: And we see automotive as a growing factor, among other things—the components get denser, regardless of what they're for.

Mauve: I have crossed the Atlantic three times since September, and we did three wonderful shows; you should see Detroit today. Detroit is booming again. Detroit is bouncing from its own ashes, and eCars is going to be the industry—already you notice that. Everywhere, they are looking for solutions, the American people are looking into it, and it's a serious market going on. Tesla showed us and paved the way, and all the big names now in the Detroit area like Ford and GM are all into this sector.

Michels: I would like to say something regarding Tesla. Tesla paved the way, as you just said, and this is exactly right. They paved the way and the old-style car manufacturers hadn’t taken them too seriously at first. Now they take them seriously! BMW and Mercedes announced day before yesterday that, by 2022 at the latest, 20% of their entire sales will be eCars or hybrid cars. Tesla is now talking about 500,000 new Teslas next year, which they won't reach anyway, but when you think about Volkswagen or Toyota, the manufacturers of volume, they produce 10 million cars, or 20 times that, so they are the real deal.

Mauve: In the U.S., what you notice is this is not pushed by government enforcement or large incentives, compared with Europe, where the big car manufacturers had to turn a proportion of their production into eCars or hybrids. But in the US, more people are wanting green cars. For example, in California you see that people’s consciences are coming out—what they want for the future of their kids. This is exactly what it is about. In America, the market is 17 to 18 million cars a year, so if you do the math, and let's take a conservative 10-12 %, that’s over two million cars a year.

Starkey: I think Ventec has made some very good business decisions at the right time to focus their R&D effort.

Mauve: I have fun! In parking lots I’m looking at cars, and I’m looking at lights.

Starkey: You very much enjoy what you do, Didier. It's always great to talk with you because you speak with such enthusiasm about it.

Mauve: Yes. It's because we are making the new technologies possible, and we are offering that to a wider number of people and making it affordable. LED lighting two to three years ago was just for some happy few. Today, you make it affordable for everybody, and you see it on the Spanish-made SEAT Leon or even get it on the SEAT Ibiza, which is a lower-end car for about $600. It's nothing. It's affordability, security, and safety. And you will see, eCars will be the same. We are going to find some solutions and we’re going to find new products and make them even more affordable.

Starkey: And you’ll stay ahead of the game and be giving these guys what they need, as if you were their future.

Mauve: Exactly. We're part of that. Ventec, and our good competitors, are the base for that, and that's fun. The electronics industry is always surprising!

The electronic content in our life is huge, and it's increasing. I remember, many years ago, the old guys came up with the transistor, then they came up with microprocessors, and they only talked CPU. Now you see that this is the “coming back” of the old power electronics guys, because it is used in eCars. The power electronics guys that nobody talked about are now in demand. The high voltage, the high current, nobody had to deal with that. When you deal with the CPU, you deal with milli-volt or milli-amps, and here we are talking lots of amps and we are talking thousands of volts, so think about it. That's good time for high performance dielectrics!

Goldman: Thank you so much for your time, both of you, for this interesting information.

Michels: Thank you very much.

Mauve: It’s always a pleasure. Thank you.

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