Queretaro is Home to the First Automotive University in Mexico
In addition to its place as the home of the first automotive university in Mexico, Queretaro is also the location of other high-profile industrial training and educational facilities.
The first automotive university in Mexico has recently initiated its operations inside of Queretaro’s Polytechnic University (UPQ). The educational and training facility will be linked to that educational institution’s Center for Innovation and Automotive Development (CIDEA) and will be operated by the supplier to the automotive industry, Brose. This company is headquartered in Germany and has been in Mexico beginning in 2010. The firm produces window regulator drives, HVAC blowers, steering component motors, cooling fan motors, and several other parts and inputs to customers such as Volkswagen, Daimler, Chrysler, Ford, GM, Nissan, Honda, and Audi.
News of the inauguration of the automotive university in Mexico was recently provided by, Francisco Dominguez Servien, the governor of the State of Queretaro. The accord to establish the facility was signed by the governor and Brose executive’s during the Governor’s visit to Germany in June of last year.
Dominguez Servien noted that a total investment of approximately US $15 million in the construction of the facility and the purchase of equipment, in his message. When speaking about the educational institution, the governor remarked that “the automotive university in Mexico at Queretaro’s Polytechnic University will raise Mexican industry skills and will help to make the state’s vehicle sector among the most competitive in all of Mexico.” The governor also informed that Queretaro is home to one hundred and seventy-two automotive suppliers and that these manufacturers have contributed more than 44,000 direct jobs to the local economy. He also commented that with the presence of the inaugural automotive university in Mexico in the state, the Queretaro-based automotive suppliers could eventually employ more than seventy-five thousand workers and could contribute twenty-five percent to the entity’s Gross State Product (GSP).
CIDEA consists of a building that has three floors. While the first two floors are dedicated to classroom instruction, the third floor of the first automotive university in Mexico serves as an incubator for business. This facility will add to Mexico’s prominence among global automotive producers. Today, Mexico is the 7th largest manufacturer of light vehicles in the world and is the 4th largest exporter of automobiles. Only Germany, Japan and the United States send more product to overseas customers.
In addition to being the location of Mexico’s first automotive university, the state of Queretaro is also the site of a sixty-two million dollar research and development center. The announcement of the inauguration of this facility was made in January of 2018 by Continental Automotive. The firm has communicated that employment at its research and development center will rise to 1,100 workers in the future and that the center will develop technologies for electric cars and autonomous vehicles. The director of Continental’s R&D center, Jorge Vazquez Murillo, recently explained that the company chose Queretaro as the location to perform automotive industry R&D due to the impressive expansion that has occurred in the state’s automotive industry over the last few years. He also made the point that Queretaro has a significant educational base for the supply of trained and qualified employees and has the most plentiful per capita concentration of researchers in Mexico as a whole.
Lastly, beyond the Continental and Brose training and R&D facilities, Harman International also has recently inaugurated a center for design in Queretaro. The facility will serve “to craft components for vehicle audio systems and for ‘connected car’ technology.” The automotive supplier has established this facility to service an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) clientele. More succinctly, Mexico Now notes that “from this design center, Harman will support 8 manufacturers from Asia and North America. Among these original equipment manufacturers are Subaru, General Motors, Lincoln, Toyota, Ford, and Harley Davidson.”
The Harman International design center commenced its operations with an initial capital injection of US $1 million. Harman executives have communicated that more monies will eventually be pumped into the project for the purpose of installing advanced laboratories and testing facilities. The facility occupies twenty thousand sq. ft. of industrial space in Empresalia business complex in Queretaro. It currently employs a staff of one hundred and eighty engineers and forecasts that employment will exceed 220 individuals in the future. At present Harman International engineers are working to test advanced and to design technical products. These include “speakers and navigation systems, first-level amplifiers, as well as automobile communications.
In addition to the research and development facility, Harman International has a manufacturing presence in the three major Mexican manufacturing centers: Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez in Queretaro.
The presence of the Brose’s first automotive university in Mexico, as well as the R&D facilities that have been established by Harman International and Continental and secure Queretaro’s place as a leader in the country’s automotive production sector for years to come.
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