In order to secure its success also over the long term, Daimler has made the topic of sustainability into a key element of its growth strategy. “Sustainable growth is only possible on the basis of sustainable action,” stated Dr. Christine Hohmann-Dennhardt, Member of the Daimler Board of Management for Integrity and Legal Affairs, at the presentation of the company’s latest sustainability report.
A central element for the increasing expansion of electromobility in Germany is taking shape. To enable all future users of electromobility to access a nationwide charging infrastructure comfortably and securely, BMW Group, Bosch, Daimler, EnBW, RWE, and Siemens have formed a joint venture. Following the announcement of a memorandum of understanding to this effect in January, the six partners have now officially launched their joint venture.
To coincide with their arrival, yesterday the new residents of the “Effizienzhaus-Plus mit Elektromobilität“ were given a smart fortwo electric drive and a Mercedes-Benz A-Class E-CELL. For the next three months the family of four will therefore be able to get around using the battery-electric vehicles without producing any emissions at all. Among other things the project serves to field test state-of-the-art technologies, and this is why the vehicles will use the intelligent charging function "Smart Charge Communication" and an inductive charging option.
Germany is on its way to an emission-free future. With the aim of making Germany a leading market for electromobility, the German federal government’s National Development Plan for Electromobility combines climate protection and industrial policy. Its target is to have one million electric vehicles on the country’s roads by 2020. However, achieving this will require greater customer acceptance. Improved user-friendliness is a vital condition for this acceptance, and has prompted six German companies to sign a memorandum of understanding.
Today at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Daimler and Google announced a deepening of their strategic partnership to provide Daimler with access to the suite of application programming interfaces (APIs) known as Google Maps API for Business for the use of cloud-based, map-related applications in Daimler vehicles and early access to other new APIs as they are developed. These applications significantly accelerate time-to-market in Mercedes-Benz passenger cars.