Mercedes 2009 Annual Report Download - page 86

82
Research and development
Top priority for research and development. Research and
development play a key role at Daimler. Following the tradition of
Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz, we have always seen ourselves
as pioneers and drivers of innovation in the automotive industry.
For this reason, we vigorously pushed forward with our research
and development activities in the year 2009, despite very difficult
market conditions. Our research activities help us to anticipate
trends as well as customers’ desires and the requirements they
place on future mobility, which are then consistently integrated
into series products by our development engineers. Our goal is to
provide our customers with exciting products and tailored solu-
tions for needs-oriented, safe and sustainable mobility. We orga-
nize our technology portfolio and our core competencies to
ensure that we achieve this goal (see page 136 ff).
18,800 employees in research and development departments.
Key factors for the market success of our vehicles are the exper-
tise, creativity and motivation of our employees in research and
development. At the end of the year 2009, 18,800 persons were
employed in Daimler’s research and development departments
around the world (end of 2008: 18,900). Of that total, 11,800
persons were employed at Group Research and Mercedes-Benz
Cars Development, 5,100 at the Daimler Trucks division, 800
at the Mercedes-Benz Vans division and 1,100 at Daimler
Buses.
Almost 3,500 research and development personnel were em-
ployed outside Germany (2008: 3,600).
The most important sites in our research and development net-
work are Sindelfingen, Untertürkheim and Ulm in Germany. Our
research and development locations in North America and Asia
include Palo Alto, California and the research center for informa-
tion and communication technology in Bangalore, India, as well
as the Global Hybrid Center in Kawasaki, Japan. Furthermore, we
collaborate with various renowned research institutes world-
wide and participate in international exchange programs for young
sci en tists.
Effective involvement of the supplier industry. In order to
achieve our ambitious research and development goals, we also
make use of services provided by supplier companies. Particu-
larly in view of the technological challenges facing the automotive
industry and the need to bring new technologies to market
maturity as quickly as possible, it is essential to coordinate our
activities with supplier companies. But within the framework
of joint research and development work, we ensure that the core
competencies for technologies important for the future of the
automobile and for the uniqueness of our brand remain at the
Group.
More than 2,000 patents filed. Daimler newly registered a total
of 2,072 patents in the year 2009 (2008: 1,807), most of which
were in the areas of drive systems and safety. More
than 500
patent applications related to the issue of emission-free mobility,
in particular electric drive systems using power from batteries
or fuel cells. In the coming years, we will further extend our tech-
nology and innovation leadership across all products and brands
with the help of industrial property rights.
High level of research and development expenditure. We
effectively continued the research and development projects
impor tant for our vehicles’ competitiveness in 2009, while further
improving the efficiency and quality of our research and devel-
opment work. We intend to play an active part in shaping the tech-
nological transformation facing the automotive industry with
pioneering innovations also in the future. We therefore maintained
a high level of research and development expenditure of €4.2
billion last year (2008: €4.4 billion). In accordance with IFRS
accounting regulations, we capitalized development costs in
a total amount of €1.3 billion (2008: €1.4 billion). The main areas
of our work were new, extremely fuel-efficient and environ-
mentally friendly drive technologies, in line with our “Road to
Emission-free Mobility” initiative. We work on optimizing
conventional
drive technologies and enhancing their efficiency
through hybridization, as well as on electric vehicles with fuel-
cell drive and battery power. Another focus is on new safety tech-
nologies: In the context of our “Vision of Accident-free Driving,”
we are pursuing the goal of avoiding accidents as far as possible
and of alleviating the consequences of any accidents that might
still occur.
Road to Emission-free Mobility
Optimizing our vehicles
with modern conventional
powertrains
Hybridization for further
increase in efficiency
Emission-free driving
with fuel cells and battery
vehicles
Clean fuels for internal combustion engines
Energy for the future
Energy sources for emission-free driving