Continental

Continental was founded in 1871 as a rubber manufacturer, Continental-Caoutchouc und Gutta-Percha Compagnie. In 1898, Continental started development and production of the vehicle tires with plain tread, which was the major success of the brand. In 1904, Continental became the first company in the world to manufacture grooved vehicle tires. Another major product Continental invented was detachable wheel tire that was made for touring vehicles . In the late 1920s, Continental merged with several other major rubber industry companies to form the largest rubber company in Germany "Continental Gummi-Werke AG".

Nazi era

When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, all members of the Board of Management as well as the authorized signatories and directors of the second management level were obliged to join the Nazi party, the Works Council was purged of "opponents of the regime," and all Jewish members of the Supervisory Board were forced to resign. As early as the end of 1933, the Executive Board could proudly announce that Continental was now "a Christian and purely German company"As with many other German companies during World War II, Continental used slave labor provided by the Nazi Party in their factories in the 1940s at Hannover-Stöcken, Hannover-Limmer, Hannover-Ahlem, and others, all offshoots of the Neuengamme concentration camp.

Postwar

Continental teamed up with FATE in 1999 for the production of tires for cars, trucks, and buses in Argentina and exportation of the San Fernando plant's production to the rest of South America.In 2001, Continental acquired a controlling interest in Temic, DaimlerChrysler's automotive-electronics business, which is now part of Continental Automotive Systems. The company also purchased German automotive rubber and plastics company Phoenix AG in 2004, and the automotive electronics unit of Motorola in 2006. Continental acquired Siemens VDO from Siemens AG in 2007. Also in 2007, the company began to construct a plant in Costa Rica to produce powertrain components for North America. The plant was to open in two phases and ultimately employ 550 workers.In 2008, Continental appeared overextended with its integration of VDO and had since lost almost half of its market capitalisation when it found itself to be the hostile takeover target of the family-owned Schaeffler AG. By 2009, Schaeffler successfully installed the head of its motor division at the helm of Continental.Continental was ranked third in global OEM automotive parts sales in 2012 according to a study sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers. On 6 September 2012, Continental returned to the benchmark DAX index of 30 selected German blue chip stocks after a 45-month absence. IHO Group is the controlling shareholder and currently owns 46% of Continental shares. In November 2018, Continental purchased Kmart Tyre and Auto in Australia from Wesfarmers for A$350 million.On 13 November 2020, it was announced that Nikolai Setzer would take over as CEO following the short-notice resignation of Elmar Degenhart.In February 2021, Continental announced that it acquired a minority stake in Recogni, a German-U.S. start-up, to advance its autonomous driving technology. The start-up is working on a new chip architecture for object recognition in real time based on artificial intelligence.In December 2021, as a result of a diplomatic spat between Lithuania and China over Taiwan and human rights China pressured Continental AG to stop doing business with Lithuania.In April 2022, Continental resumed production of tires in Russia despite International sanctions during the Russo-Ukrainian War due to 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.