The Daimler Truck Innovation Center India in Bengaluru will serve as the backbone for all technology development for Daimler Truck globally, including Mercedes-Benz Trucks, Freightliner, Western Star, Thomas Built Buses, Fuso, Bharat Benz and EvoBus GmbH, it said on Thursday.
This follows the carving out of Daimler Truck into an independent entity focusing on trucks and buses in December 2021. “When we thought about the footprint for our future R&D, it was mainly software, electronics and IT and so we decided to set this up in India where there is a highly educated, large talent pool and a very stable political and legal environment,” Thomas Ulm, chairman of Daimler Truck Innovation Center India, told ET.
This facility is the company’s biggest R&D centre outside its home markets of Germany and North America.
Daimler already had a significant engineering presence in Bengaluru as part of the Mercedes development facility, said Raghavendra Vaidya, managing director of Daimler Truck Innovation Center India, adding that there would be a steep ramp up in the number of people going forward.
“The global ambition is to make progress towards zero-emission commercial vehicles and moving away from conventional powertrain to battery electric and fuel cell powered by hydrogen. And then second is to double down on the software and electronics as a way to innovate,” he said. The new facility would play an important role in driving research in both these areas, and work in close collaboration with the other global technology centres.
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The engineering team at the facility will focus on areas like vehicle engineering, powertrain engineering, software development for electronic control units, computer-aided engineering and computer-aided design, along with working on connectivity, cyber security, big data and advanced analytics, system integration and electrification. The design team will work on developing products to redefine the interiors and exteriors across the product range, the company said.
The easy availability of high-quality, English-speaking engineering talent has made India an important destination for automakers looking to expand their technology centres outside their home markets.
