Innovating the way forward

At the biennial Innovation Symposium, DaimlerChrysler executives discussed some of the technologies that will help shape the future of the automobile.

The figures are stark: By 2050, the world' s population will have reached 9 billion-three times that of 1950. Those people will be transported in 2 billion vehicles-three times today's total. “The world is on the move-and it's going to stay that way.”

That was the central message from DaimlerChrysler's biennial Innovation Symposium held May 4 at the company's global headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. It came from Thomas Weber, Member of the Board with responsibility for research and technology, who added, “Nobody is going to deny the inhabitants of the developing and threshold nations the sort of individual mobility that Europeans, North Americans, and Japanese take for granted.”