With safety becoming a growing concern in modern times, cars have moved on from passive safety to active safety, with the inclusion of ADAS and numerous other features. However, seldom do we think about larger commercial vehicles, which are on the road much more. To make them safer, Daimler is working on safety systems that can be updated through software only.
To do so, Daimler’s architecture boasts technology that can be updated remotely, and to do this, India’s IT-rich ecosystem is a perfect place. The Daimler Truck Innovation Center India (DTICI), which has spent a year working towards its goals for 2025 – to build a strong engineering company that is integrated with the parent company but with the freedom to innovate in the area of engineering and IT – and the previous year has been Daimler’s first year as an independent company.
Usually, to create a new platform or an architecture, it takes a company an average of 5 to 6 years, however, if the same has to be tweaked, it would take a year or two. DTICI’s MD and CEO, Raghavendra Vaidya, says, “The future is not about creating new architectures that take time, but shorten the time of innovation. So our goal is to have enough headroom in the new hardware we introduce so that innovation can be driven for many years to come by software.”
For example, Daimler trucks have active safety which consists of a set of hardware and software, however, the company intends to keep updating safety only with the use of the latter in the future. “This is a much shorter cycle. If there arises a need for a new safety feature, we can develop that with software and update the vehicles over the air,” says Vaidya. He adds that developing things that need a year is long gone as innovation cycles are getting shorter, and the software space is where innovations are happening.
Currently, Daimler is outsourcing the software from Tier I suppliers, but soon, the company is looking at having an in-house team. “When we are making big shifts in architecture, we are looking at developing things that are scalable for a long period,” he adds. Currently, DTICI builds the architectures alone, and as per the CEO, hardware will continue to be built by other suppliers.
“We have our targets lined up, our projects, and initiatives towards achieving this goal,” says Vaidya. Daimler’s facility here is the company’s largest engineering centre globally, outside its hometown and “our success is measured by how much value we add to our products,” adds the CEO.
“When it comes to engineering, it’s quite different, as our customers don’t look at the type of screens our trucks offer, or what kind of wheels they run on. They buy our products to drive their business, which brings us to our ambition — we make our customers more successful by making our products better,” says Vaidya.
