The contract was first signed in September 2012 and has been continued for another three years under the deal.

The initial project focus on studying China-specific traffic behaviour, vehicle safety and traffic information technologies is now being extended by IT innovation and joint education and research internship projects.

“The signing with Tsinghua University reiterates our commitment to better understand China and the needs of our customers”, said Hans Georg Engel, head of R&D, platform management, purchasing & supplier quality China. “Through our expanded partnership with Tsinghua University, one of China’s leading academic institutions, we will be able to even better optimisze our products for use on China’s roads and so furthermore meet our Chinese customers’ specifications within our future product development.”