News

Mercedes moving US headquarters to Atlanta from New Jersey

Mercedes-Benz USA (MBUSA) plans to create 1,000 jobs in Atlanta by moving its U.S. headquarters there from its longtime home in Montvale, New Jersey. The move is designed to better serve its growing customer base and strengthen Mercedes’ position for growth.

MBUSA executives and staff will relocate to a temporary facility in Atlanta’s Central Perimeter on an interim basis starting in July 2015, with a new headquarters expected to be completed in early 2017. The move will be phased to help minimize business disruptions. Several operational areas will remain in both Montvale and Robbinsville, New Jersey.

“New Jersey has been a wonderful home to our U.S. operations for our first 50 years, and still is today,” says MBUSA President and CEO Stephen Cannon. “The state has worked tirelessly with us as we evaluated our options.”

He adds, however, that Atlanta is “closer to our ever-growing Southeast customer base, our port in Brunswick, Georgia, and to Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, our Alabama manufacturing facility, which accounts for half of the vehicles we sell here in the U.S. For our employees, Atlanta offers a strong quality of life, terrific schools, and wonderful cultural and recreational opportunities.” www.mbusa.com

Royalty-free fuel cell patents from Toyota

Toyota officials are making available about 5,680 hydrogen fuel cell patents, royalty free, in hopes of spurring development and introduction of innovative fuel cell technologies. Several of the patents are for critical technologies developed for the Toyota Mirai fuel cell vehicle. The list includes approximately 1,970 patents related to fuel cell stacks, 290 associated with high-pressure hydrogen tanks, 3,350 related to fuel cell system software control, and 70 patents related to hydrogen production and supply.

“When good ideas are shared, great things can happen,” says Bob Carter, senior vice president of automotive operations at Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. “The first generation hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, launched between 2015 and 2020, will be critical, requiring a concerted effort and unconventional collaboration between automakers, government regulators, academia, and energy providers. By eliminating traditional corporate boundaries, we can speed the development of new technologies and move into the future of mobility more quickly, effectively, and economically.”

The announcement represents the first time Toyota has made its patents available free of charge, something that Carter says reflects the company’s aggressive support for developing a hydrogen-based society.

The hydrogen fuel cell patents will be made available to automakers who will produce and sell fuel cell vehicles, fuel cell parts suppliers, and energy companies that establish and operate fueling stations, until about 2020. Companies working to develop and introduce fuel cell buses and industrial equipment, such as forklifts, are also covered. Requests from parts suppliers and companies looking to adapt fuel cell technology outside of the transportation sector will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Patents related to fuel cell vehicles will be available for royalty-free licenses until the end of 2020. Patents for hydrogen production and supply will remain open for an unlimited duration.

As part of licensing agreements, Toyota will request, but will not require, that other companies share their fuel cell-related patents with Toyota for similar royalty-free use. www.toyota.com/fuelcell

Stealth motorcycle funding approved

Engineering company Logos Technologies of Fairfax, Virginia, and Alta Motors of San Francisco have received a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to continue development of the SilentHawk military motorcycle.

When fully developed, SilentHawk would allow small, distributed military teams to move long distances quickly and stealthily across harsh enemy terrain. The prototype combines Alta’s existing RedShift MX electric motocross bike with Logos Technologies’ quiet, multi-fueled hybrid-electric power system, developed for an unmanned aerial vehicle program.

“Quiet, all-wheel-drive capability at extended range in a lightweight, rugged, single-track vehicle would support the successful operations in extreme terrain conditions and contested environments,” says Wade Pulliam, manager of advanced concepts for Logos Technologies. “This award enables us to continue to execute a fast-paced development effort that takes advantage of our team’s prior work, superior technical approach, and extensive experience.”

During Phase I, which began in February 2014, Logos and Alta conducted extensive performance testing on the RedShift MX in multiple terrains and riding conditions to help understand the requirements for an off-road military motorcycle. Using this data, Logos demonstrated the suitability of its hybrid-electric system to meeting actual off-road power requirements. The result of Phase I was a preliminary design, backed by significant testing and modeling, which Logos intends to turn into a prototype during Phase II. The Logos-Alta team plans an aggressive Phase II program plan, with the goal of developing and testing the first operational prototype in 18 months.

“We also believe that the system resulting from this second phase of the program would have applicability to other ground vehicle systems beyond motorcycles,” Pulliam says. www.logostech.net