At four locations around the world, Advanced Design Studios serve Daimler as “hot spots” that further develop the Mercedes-Benz design vocabulary and ensure receptivity to the latest design trends. A visit to the Advanced Design team in Irvine, California, provides an insight into how these designers are anticipating the future.
An engine is the heart of a motor vehicle. As a consequence, it’s only fitting that we, as the inventors of the automobile, particularly focus our attention on engines.
And that’s why the Engine Research and Engine Development units play a central
role at Mercedes-Benz Cars.
As data from the German Federal Statistical Office shows, a remarkable number of accidents involving personal injury occur at intersections and junctions. Altogether, about 80 percent of such accidents take place in urban areas. Daimler’s Accident Data Analysis Project Center investigates the reasons for this and looks for remedies.
The software specialists from Daimler Research often go into action when unexpected problems crop up with the program for one of the onboard electronic control systems during the development of a new vehicle. Depending on the model and the level of equipment, today’s cars may have between 40 and 60 control units, each with its own specific source code.
On the road to creating the zero-emission vehicle, Daimler has launched the Shaping Future Transportation initiative. Buses like the Citaro G BlueTec Hybrid and trucks like the Atego BlueTec Hybrid use between 20 and 30 percent less diesel than other vehicles.
With flexible roll forming, body components can be produced quickly and with high precision. Series production of side sills for the E-Class is to begin in 2009. Lighter weight is ensured thanks to the use of very highstrength steel.
The F-Cell, which is based on the Mercedes-Benz B-Class, takes field testing of this innovative drive technology to the next level. In Sweden’s biting sub-zero winter temperatures, the new car recently faced its first challenging
tests.
Teams from Daimler Research and Development were honored with the coveted research award for projects ranging from a superb vehicle sound system and a diagnostic system for detecting electronic faults to a start-stop system for fuel cell drives.
The many professions practiced by Dennis L. Meadows (born in 1942) can best be summed up by simply calling him a systemic thinker. In the early 1970s Meadows, a co-author of the revolutionary book The Limits to Growth, and his fellow members of the Club of Rome firmly established the concepts of the limited character of natural resources and the need to utilize them sustainably in the minds of the general public. Meadows’ systemic and quantitative approach to analyzing future developments has influenced environmental research ever since.
