Background: from winning project to finished product

The Research and Innovation Award has been presented since 1994. The fact that many innovations from winning projects can either already be found in Daimler products, or will soon be launched on the market, impressively demonstrates the company’s ability to transfer research results to production vehicles.

One example is the Night Vision system, which won the award in 1999 and is now available in S-Class and CL-Class models from Mercedes-Benz. The 2006 winner – the BlueTEC I system for emissions reductions – actually premiered on the U.S. market that very same year, and was then launched in Europe in 2007. A concept for “Homogeneous Combustion” honored in 2000 was used by Daimler engine researchers as the basis for their DIESOTTO auto-ignition gasoline engine, which in 2007 celebrated its worldwide public debut in the F 700 research vehicle.

Also put into practice at the company have been process innovations such as the Robscan technique, which won the award in 2003, and a software process for the “Feature-Based Process Chain for Vehicle Bodies,” which received the award in 2002 and is now being used in the CATIA V development tool.