Daimler-Benz News from April 3, 1995

Research and Technology Center

Daimler-Benz establishes
research center in the USA

Hanover, 3rd April, 1995
Daimler-Benz AG of Stuttgart has established a research and technology center in Palo Alto in the US State of California. Addressing journalists covering the Hanover Fair, Professor Hartmut Weule - the member of the Daimler-Benz Board of Management responsible for research - announced that the Research and Technology Center (RTC), which is located in Silicon Valley in the immediate vicinity of the Universities of Stanford and Berkeley, "is intended to provide excellent access to the latest scientific and technological developments, as well as early identification of changes in society". Professor Weule pointed out that the RTC will not only report such developments but will actively include them in the Daimler-Benz Group's innovation process and will make its own independent contributions to research in some specific areas.

The research work at the RTC will focus on aspects of information technology, microtechnology and will also examine questions relating to the wider social context. Conducted in the form of joint research projects, studies and seminars, this work will support the cooperation between research organizations and institutes in the USA, Daimler-Benz Research in Germany, and the Business Divisions of the Daimler-Benz Group.

The RTC, which actually became operational in January 1995, will employ more than 25 people from Germany and the USA by the end of the year.

It is only a few months since the Daimler-Benz Group established a joint research institute in Shanghai, China, in cooperation with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This center is conducting research into new bonding technologies for components in the particularly fast-growing field of microelectronics.

There is a long history of close contact and cooperation on research projects between Daimler-Benz and some of the many renowned research institutes based in the area around Palo Alto. Professor Weule emphasized that the establishment of Daimler-Benz's own research institute would permit even closer scientific collaboration: "The growing presence of Daimler-Benz Research outside Germany is a logical consequence of the increasingly international orientation of markets, development, and production in the Daimler-Benz Group." Professor Weule observed that, in view of the current speed of new developments, the Group could not afford to be unrepresented in "idea factories" like this: "With development cycles of sometimes less than twelve months, anyone whose product reaches the market just a matter of days later than that of the competition will lose out noticeably in economic terms."

As Professor Weule went on to say, Daimler-Benz Research is already working with renowned research institutes all over the world. The cooperation in research associated with the "Advanced Information Technology in Design and Manufacturing" project, which involves the entire European automobile and aerospace industry, is of particular importance for Europe as an industrial center. Together with Ballard of Canada, Daimler-Benz is conducting research into the basic technical principles of the fuel cell, which could become an alternative to using oil and gas as sources of energy.

Joint research with Belém University in Brazil has made the Group a center of know-how with regard to sustainable (regrowing) raw materials, which Daimler-Benz regards as having a high degree of technical potential. There are further important research partnerships with United Technologies (UTC) of the USA and Mitsubishi of Japan.

The Group is also supporting the growth in internationalization through a special international exchange programme for employees in the research and technology sector, an international young employees' development group and an international research network, the "Circle Member Group". The Daimler-Benz Group invests approximately DM 500 million of its own funds in research every year.

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