Mercedes 2006 Annual Report Download - page 121

Sustainability |Researchand Development |105
imminent, the system automatically initiates an emergency braking
maneuver if the driver fails to respond to visual and acoustic
alarms. Experts believe that widespread use of all safety systems
presently available would halve the number of accidents involving
commercial vehicles.
For this reason, Active Brake Assist is a key component of the
Mercedes-Benz Safety Technology for Commercial Vehicles initia-
tive. This initiative includes the “Safety Truck”, “Safety Coach”
and “Safety Van”, which are equipped with every assistance and
safety system currently available.
All the aforementioned vehicles are already on the market
and are thus making a major contribution to the realization of
our vision of accident-free driving.
Energy for the future – ensuring sustainable mobility. Daimler-
Chrysler is pursuing a multi-stage approach in order to be able
tooffer its customers reliable and economical drive concepts over
the long term. Combustion engines will maintain their dominant
role in the coming years. We will therefore make them more effi-
cient, cleaner and more economical, in order to achieve further
reductions in emissions, including carbon dioxide. Our objective
is to make gasoline engines as efficient as diesel engines, and
diesel engines as clean as gasoline engines. A logical step in this
direction was taken at the beginning of 2006 with the presentation
in the CLS-Class of the world’s first gasoline engine equipped with
piezo injectors and a jet-guided direct fuel injection. The new
engine uses 10% less fuel than one equipped with a conventional
injection system. With regard to diesel engines, our BLUETEC
system (see page 106) is the first technology package for passenger
cars on the market that reduces emissions of all relevant diesel
exhaust components to previously unknown levels.
Our research and development engineers are also working
hard on alternative and environmentally friendly fuels such as
SunDiesel, which is made from biomass (see page 107).
Hybrid drive systems will become more important in the medium
term, which is why we are developing various hybrid concepts,
for example in a joint venture involving General Motors and BMW
(see page 106).
The most effective and environmentally friendly drive concept
for the long term is the fuel cell, which we have been developing
intensively for many years now.
Fuel cells for a zero-emission future. Many challenges must
be overcome before fuel-cell technology is ready for the
mass market, probably some time between 2012 and 2015.
At present, 100 Mercedes-Benz fuel-cell vehicles – passenger
cars, Sprinter vans and buses – are being used by customers
in normal everyday operations. By the end of 2006, this fleet had
accumulated a combined 2.8 million kilometers and 146,800
operating hours.
Evaluation of the collated test data has produced valuable results
that will flowinto the development of the next generation of fuel-cell
vehicles, which will be based on the Mercedes-Benz B-Class
and the Citaro fuel-cell bus. Fleet tests in the future will focus on
reducing costs further and achieving additional technical
improvements in the areas of cold-start capability, vehicle range
and power-to-weight ratio.
The Clean Urban Transport for Europe (CUTE) and the Ecological
City Transport System (ECTOS) hydrogen projects, both of
which are funded by the European Union, have shown that our
fuel-cell buses work reliably even under the extreme conditions
of everyday use. Due to this success, the European Union decided
in favor of a follow-up project called HyFLEET:CUTE, which was
launched in January 2006.
In addition tothese projects, we cooperate on fuel-cell and
hydrogen projects with partners around the world in the energy
industry and at government agencies. Such projects include
the Clean Energy Partnership (CEP) in Berlin, the California Fuel
Cell Partnership (CaFCP) in Sacramento and the Japanese
Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Project (JHFC) in Tokyo. These initiatives
not only demonstrate the capabilities of fuel-cell vehicles, but
also present technologies suitable for producing and distributing
hydrogen. The establishment of an infrastructure of hydrogen
filling stations is just as important in terms of market readiness as
the further development of the hydrogen fuel-cell drive itself.
Assistance system for more safety:
The PRE-SAFE®brakes in the
S-Class and CL-Class brake the car
automatically if an accident is imminent.