Mercedes 2008 Annual Report Download - page 51

Management Report |Business and Strategy |47
We intend to further enhance our position in the markets of the
future with products whose character and marketing are
tailored to the special requirements of each market. In India for
example, we have entered into a joint venture for the produc-
tion of trucks with the Hero Group and reached an agreement
on the future production location. The joint venture between
Daimler Buses and India’s Sutlej Motors already delivered its
first luxury coaches to customers in the third quarter of 2008.
In Russia, we intend to further extend our market position
through the strategic partnership with Kamaz. In this context,
we have acquired a 10% equity interest in Kamaz, Russia’s
leading manufacturer of heavy trucks.
– Further development of innovative and customer-oriented
services and technologies. We are working intensively on
the development of innovative, customer-oriented technologies
along the entire automotive value chain.
Because the demands placed on mobility will become increas-
ingly varied, in the future it is unlikely that there will only one
type of vehicle with one type of propulsion. In the context of
our “Roadmap to Sustainable Mobility,” we are therefore working
in parallel on several drive technologies and are consistently
further improving our vehicles with combustion engines. At the
same time, we aim to continue improving the efficiency of
hybrid drive systems, while opening up the way to emission-free
driving with fuel-cell and battery-powered vehicles. We also
support the development, production and distribution of clean
fuels for combustion engines as well as alternative energy
sources for emission-free driving.
We are implementing this strategy in the form of concrete
products on the car side with our “Road to the Future” initia-
tive and with commercial vehicles with “Shaping Future
Transportation.” The most important milestones are BLUETEC
diesel technology, our worldwide leading position for com-
mercial vehicles with hybrid drive, BlueEFFICIENCY cars from
Mercedes-Benz, our S 400 BlueHYBRID – the world’s most
fuel-efficient luxury sedan with a gasoline engine, the smart
fortwo electric drive, and the innovative “DIESOTTO” engines
designed to combine the economy of diesel engines with the low
emissions of modern gasoline engines. They all demonstrate
our innovative power for environmentally friendly mobility.
However, we believe the key technology for mobility that is inde-
pendent of fossil fuels and sustainable over the long term is
the fuel cell. With more than 100 test vehicles and approximately
4 million test kilometers driven, we have the world’s largest
fleet of fuel-cell vehicles on the road. In 2009, we are starting
production of our first small series of emission-free vehicles,
the Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-CELL and the smart fortwo electric
drive.
By means of the broad setup of the group, we have the
possibility to introduce our new technologies in all automobile
activities.
Parallel to the technological development of our product range,
we will expand the range of services we offer in connection
with these products. In cooperation between Daimler Financial
Services and the automotive divisions, we are developing new
methods in order to utilize the promising business potential
offered by the services sector. One example of this is Omniplus,
a comprehensive, bus-specific range of services for our
Mercedes-Benz and Setra omnibuses.
– Development and innovation of new businesses in related
areas. We will make targeted use of the results of the work done
by our research and development departments, our attractive
customer base and our strong brands to utilize new business
potential also in related areas. However, a precondition for this
is that the new business ideas are related to our core business
and contribute to our profitable growth. The Business Innova-
tion Team formed in 2007 has the task of developing new busi-
ness ideas and supporting their implementation. One of the
first key projects is car2go, a new urban mobility concept. The
pilot phase of car2go started in Ulm in October 2008.