LIVONIA, Mich., Jan. 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- With continued pressure from legislators and consumer bodies to increase the fitment of active safety systems, TRW Automotive Holdings Corp. (NYSE: TRW) expects several notable trends to develop in the electronics field including:


    --  Crash avoidance technologies to become mainstream
    --  Focus on affordable radar and camera systems
    --  Increased demand for open architecture systems

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Peter Lake, executive vice president, sales & business development for TRW, stated: "Electronics is the fastest growing automotive commodity: industry estimators now place the percentage of a vehicle's cost attributed to this area to be as high as 40 to 50 percent, up from 20 percent a decade ago.

"Today, the industry is stepping up to the mark as organisations such as the World Health Organisation and the European Commission have set ambitious targets to drastically reduce the number of road fatalities globally by 2020. To support this, New Car Assessment Programs (NCAPs), including Euro NCAP, are revising their rating programs to reward and promote safety improvements in new vehicles over the coming years. One of the most important goals of the new scheme will be to include emergency crash avoidance technologies, which will significantly boost the fitment of electronics content on new vehicles."

With Driver Assist Systems (DAS) set to become mainstream technology, TRW expects that optimizing costs will become an important topic for the vehicle manufacturer and supplier industry. In order to support the growing demand for video and radar, TRW is working with its customers to bring new, advanced safety technologies to market at an affordable price from the outset.

Dr. Hans-Gerd Krekels, engineering director, global integrated electronics added: "With a number of its safety systems including airbags and slip control systems - TRW has a track record of designing and engineering affordable technologies. To achieve this, for example, we need to think about the technological evolution of a product right from the start - considering how technical advances and manufacturing process improvements can allow us to bring a product more affordably to market - but with the same performance."

Finally, TRW is seeing a clearer trend toward domain architectures and a greater demand for open system architectures in order to address the growing complexity of vehicle electronics. TRW is a leader in this area and will start production of its 'Safety Domain ECU' (SDE) this year with a major European vehicle manufacturer - a technology which meets this requirement.

"A significant aspect of our SDE is that is can integrate software from vehicle manufacturers or third parties. Without knowing the code, we can integrate the software in an "open architecture" system housed within the controller. These are in high demand as vehicle manufacturers are increasingly writing their own software and asking suppliers to manage the integration - not just for active safety systems, but also for airbags, steering and braking. This has grown enormously and we expect to see exponential growth in this area," concluded Krekels.

About TRW

With 2011 sales of $16.2 billion, TRW Automotive ranks among the world's leading automotive suppliers. Headquartered in Livonia, Michigan, USA, the Company, through its subsidiaries, operates in 26 countries and employs over 60,000 people worldwide. TRW Automotive products include integrated vehicle control and driver assist systems, braking systems, steering systems, suspension systems, occupant safety systems (seat belts and airbags), electronics, engine components, fastening systems and aftermarket replacement parts and services. All references to "TRW Automotive", "TRW" or the "Company" in this press release refer to TRW Automotive Holdings Corp. and its subsidiaries, unless otherwise indicated. TRW Automotive news is available on the internet at www.trw.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains statements that are not statements of historical fact, but instead are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We caution readers not to place undue reliance on these statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. All forward-looking statements are subject to numerous assumptions, risks and uncertainties which could cause our actual results to differ materially from those suggested by the forward-looking statements, including those set forth in our Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2011 (our "Form 10-K"), and our Reports on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarters ended March 31, June 29 and September 28, 2012, such as: any developments related to antitrust investigations adversely affecting our financial condition, results, cash flows or reputation; any shortage of castings or other supplies causing a production disruption for any customers or us; general economic conditions causing a material contraction in automotive sales and production adversely affecting our results or the viability of our supply base; the unsuccessful implementation of our current expansion efforts adversely impacting our business and results; commodity inflationary pressures adversely affecting our profitability or supply base; strengthening of the U.S. dollar and other foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations impacting our results; pricing pressures from our customers adversely affecting our profitability; increasing costs negatively impacting our profitability; the loss of any of our largest customers materially adversely affecting us; risks associated with non-U.S. operations, including economic and political uncertainty in some regions, adversely affecting our business, results or financial condition; any inability to protect our intellectual property rights adversely affecting our business or our competitive position; costs of product liability, warranty and recall claims and efforts by customers to adversely alter contract terms and conditions concerning warranty and recall participation; costs or liabilities relating to environmental, health and safety regulations adversely affecting our results; work stoppages or other labor issues at our facilities or at the facilities of our customers or suppliers adversely affecting our operations; any disruption in our information technology systems adversely impacting our business and operations; and other risks and uncertainties set forth in our Form 10-K and in our other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not undertake any obligation to release publicly any update or revision to any of the forward-looking statements.

SOURCE TRW Automotive Holdings Corp.