Daimler Trucks and Buses says it is strengthening its efforts for automated trucks and buses with its new Automated Truck Research and Development Centre in Portland (Oregon, US). This innovation facility is already working in close cooperation with existing development functions for automated driving in Stuttgart and India.
“Automated driving offers enormous advantages in the logistics business, with the potential to mitigate the shortage of truck drivers around the world. From a technological point of view, there is still a long way to go until trucks can drive fully autonomously. Automated vehicles must be as safe as possible. We are putting all our effort into this at Daimler Trucks. Our new research and development centre is an important milestone on this road. We are strengthening our efforts in this area to leverage synergies in the development of these key technologies across the globe”, stated Martin Daum, member of the Board of Management of Daimler, responsible for Daimler Trucks and Buses, at today’s Daimler Trucks Capital Market and Technology Day in Portland.
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The new research and development centre develops and fine tunes systems for automated driving at Daimler Trucks and Buses according to a comprehensive technology strategy. The centre’s experts are dedicated to all aspects of developing, testing and validating automated vehicles. In addition, the engineers in Portland work in close cooperation with their colleagues in the research and development centres at Daimler Trucks locations in Stuttgart (Germany) and Bangalore (India), thus forming a global network. Through close interconnections within the Daimler Group and the exchange of experience and expertise gained from previous research projects, Daimler Trucks and Buses will benefit from valuable synergies with other vehicle divisions in future as well, especially from the passenger car unit.
Daimler Trucks is investing a total of more than EUR2.5bn (US$2.9bn) in research and development in 2018 and 2019. More than EUR500m of this will go toward e-mobility, connectivity and automated commercial vehicle technology. This also includes investment in the new research and development centre for automated driving in Portland.
