As Mercedes-Benz looks forward to celebrating its 125 anniversary in January, it is continually looking to the future.
A visit to the Mercedes Innovation Studio or "Factory" and Customer Research Centre in Boblingen provides a look at what the creative minds at the world's oldest car company are looking at. The goal is to identify long-term and far-reaching trends at an early stage, including customers in the process as early as possible.
Peter Godecke, manager of the studio, says this is the "wild side" of Mercedes, an idea-generating factory where 1,500 customers are invited to participate in one of 60-80 workshops conducted each year, supplemented by an online panel of 2,800. Mercedes employs more than 1,500 in the marketing and design innovation side of its R&D department.
Ideas generated here have to pass a number of tests. They must fit the brand, meet customer needs, pass evaluation and cost tests and be approved by the board. Both market and customer research are employed and experts with engineering, science and liberal arts background work hand-in-hand.
During group sessions, background music plays as participants are encouraged to jot down a thought and place it on the table for discussion, in the expectation it will jar someone else into expanding on the notion or perhaps taking an entirely different direction. Like musical chairs without the missing chair, when the music stops, the group sits to discuss what they have in front of them.
Ideas have ranged from suggestions on how to eliminate blind spots to ways to keep the driver alert or a paint colour that can be changed on demand. Nothing is sacred or too far-reaching.
At this stage designers are brought in to sketch the concept as it might appear in production and a sheet listing the idea, its advantages and description are posted on the "wall of innovation." Engineers and production experts are brought in to view and discuss what can and cannot be done. More than 600 ideas have been developed so far for the 2016 E-Class sedan.
Godecke gave an example of what can be accomplished in this way. He said the global trend toward urbanization and a growing demand for individual urban transportation has led to a variety of concepts that have gone into or are production ready. Mercedes has developed a bicycle with rechargeable electric assist and a hybrid scooter. The Car2Go concept is rapidly catching on in Germany and a test site in Texas. People pay a fee for access to a small urban vehicle such as an electric Smart. They don't own it, but can use one when the need arises. To date, 30,000 have signed up.
Depending on the idea, one of the company's five simulators is used to introduce new innovations. Stephen Wolfsried, vice-president, electrical/electronics and chassis development for Mercedes-Benz, says the ability to innovate is at the centre of Mercedes thinking. He says more than 19,000 people are employed by the company worldwide in R&D and proudly brags that Mercedes not only invented the automobile and motorcycle, it produced the world's first bus, truck and diesel car. In more recent times, he says, it developed the world's first occupant safety cell and crumple zone in 1951 and was the first to put into production such technologies as cruise control, ABS, electronic stability control and airbags.
More than 80,000 exclusive patents have been granted the company, 2,070 last year alone. As a sign of the times, more than half of those recent patents have been related to green technologies. Wolfsried says the current focus is on electronics and battery development. Mercedes has been granted more than 600 patents for battery-powered vehicles, 230 of them involving lithium-ion technology.
In addition to sessions in the centre's advanced driving simulator, commissioned only two weeks earlier, we also were able to take stock of the F800 Style Plug-In Hybrid concept car, which shows the future styling direction of the brand that will show up in the next-generation S-Class.