Daimler Annual Report 2011 - Alle jaarverslagen
Daimler Annual Report 2011 - Alle jaarverslagen
Daimler Annual Report 2011 - Alle jaarverslagen
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3 | Management <strong>Report</strong> | Profitability<br />
Research and development, environmental protection<br />
Top priority for research and development. Research and<br />
development have always been given high priority at <strong>Daimler</strong>.<br />
Our research activities help us to anticipate trends as well as<br />
customers’ desires and the requirements they place on future<br />
mobility, which are then consistently integrated into series<br />
products by our development engineers. Our goal is to provide<br />
our customers with exciting products and tailored solutions<br />
for needs-oriented, safe and sustainable mobility. We organize<br />
our technology portfolio and our core competencies to ensure<br />
that we achieve this goal (see pages 148 ff).<br />
Key factors for the market success of our vehicles are<br />
the expertise, creativity and motivation of our employees in<br />
research and development. At the end of the year <strong>2011</strong>,<br />
23,200 persons were employed in <strong>Daimler</strong>’s research and<br />
development departments around the world (end of 2010:<br />
22,100). Of that total, 15,600 persons were employed at<br />
Group Research and Mercedes-Benz Cars Development<br />
including subsidiaries such as AMG, MBtech etc. (2010:<br />
14,700), 5,500 at the <strong>Daimler</strong> Trucks division (2010: 5,400),<br />
1,000 at the Mercedes-Benz Vans division (2010: 900) and<br />
1,100 at <strong>Daimler</strong> Buses (2010: 1,100). More than 4,400<br />
research and development personnel were employed outside<br />
Germany (2010: 4,000).<br />
The most important sites in our research and development<br />
network are Sindelfingen, Stuttgart-Untertürkheim and Ulm,<br />
in Germany. Our research and development locations in North<br />
America and Asia include Palo Alto, California and Portland,<br />
Oregon, as well as the research center for information and<br />
communication technology in Bangalore, India and the<br />
Global Hybrid Center in Kawasaki, Japan. And we are currently<br />
constructing a research and development center in China.<br />
Furthermore, we collaborate with various renowned research<br />
institutes worldwide and participate in international exchange<br />
programs for young scientists.<br />
€5.6 billion for research and development. 3.26<br />
3.27 We intend to continue playing an active part in shaping<br />
the technological transformation facing the automotive<br />
industry with pioneering innovations in the future. We therefore<br />
increased our research and development expenditure to<br />
€5.6 billion in <strong>2011</strong> (2010: €4.8 billion). €1.5 billion of that<br />
amount was capitalized (2010: €1.4 billion). Based on our “Road<br />
to Emission-free Mobility” initiative, the main areas of our<br />
work were new, extremely fuel-efficient and environmentally<br />
friendly drive technologies in all automotive divisions. 3.25<br />
We worked on optimizing conventional drive technologies and<br />
enhancing their efficiency through hybridization, as well<br />
as on electric vehicles with fuel-cell drive and battery power.<br />
Another focus is on new safety technologies: In the context of<br />
our “Vision of Accident-free Driving,” we are pursuing the goal<br />
of avoiding accidents as far as possible and of alleviating<br />
the consequences of any accidents that might still occur.<br />
3.25<br />
Road to Emission-free Mobility<br />
Optimizing<br />
our vehicles with<br />
modern conventional<br />
powertrains<br />
Clean fuels<br />
for internal combustion engines<br />
Hybridization<br />
for further increase<br />
in efficiency<br />
Energy for the future<br />
Locally emission-free<br />
driving with electric<br />
vehicles powered by<br />
fuel cells or batteries<br />
Energy sources<br />
for locally emission-free driving<br />
Effective involvement of the supplier industry. In order to<br />
achieve our ambitious goals, we also make use of research<br />
and development services provided by supplier companies.<br />
Particularly in view of rapid technological changes in the<br />
automotive industry and the need to bring new technologies<br />
to market maturity as quickly as possible, it is essential to<br />
coordinate our activities with supplier companies. But within<br />
the framework of joint research and development work, we<br />
ensure that core competencies in technologies important for<br />
the future of the automobile and for the uniqueness of our<br />
brands remain at the Group.<br />
More than 2,100 patents filed. <strong>Daimler</strong> newly registered<br />
a total of 2,175 patents in the year <strong>2011</strong> (2010: 2,105),<br />
most of which were in the areas of drive systems and safety.<br />
More than 1,000 patent applications related to the issue<br />
of emission-free mobility, in particular electric drive systems<br />
using power from batteries or fuel cells. In the coming years,<br />
we will further extend our technology and innovation leadership<br />
across all products and brands not least with the advantage<br />
of our industrial property rights.<br />
93
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