April 08, 2022 – Mercedes-Benz aims to be a leader in both electric driving and vehicle software. To accelerate this development, the company has invested more than 200 million euros in the Electric Software Hub at the Mercedes Technology Centre (MTC) in Sindelfingen. Numerous software, hardware, system integration and testing functions are brought together under one roof. With this step, Mercedes-Benz is intensifying its approach of cross-functional collaboration.
The Electric Software Hub accelerates the transformation of Mercedes-Benz. This is where a strategic pillar of the company manifests itself: "Lead in electric drive and car software". From 2025, all new vehicle architectures will be exclusively electric. Mercedes-Benz takes a holistic approach with regard to vehicle software, ranging from basic research and development to the coding of software. Around 1,000 new jobs are currently being created for software developers in Sindelfingen alone. Up to 2,000 more jobs are currently being added in the global R&D network. The Electric Software Hub brings together the two key strategic topics for the future of Mercedes-Benz and strengthens the role of the Sindelfingen site as a central development and qualification hub. To this end, the company has invested over 200 million euros.
The Electric Software Hub is an epicentre of our research and development and at the same time closely networked with the worldwide production sites. This is where key aspects of the future of Mercedes-Benz become reality - especially our own MB.OS operating system. Cars are among the most complex products in general. The hardware and software are decoupled and must work together perfectly. We ensure this in the Electric Software Hub. It is our software integration factory.
Markus Schäfer
Member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG, Chief Technology Officer responsible for Development and Procurement.
Faster and more efficient development
With increasing digitisation, the control units in the vehicle are taking on ever more complex tasks - from infotainment and driving assistance systems to the electric drive. The integration of all components is thus increasing in importance. This process is highly complex. This is all the more true as vehicle development is no longer finished at a certain point. Cars in customer hands also receive continuous software updates with new and improved functions. The Electric Software Hub offers decisive advantages in this new vehicle world: Some 1,100 experts from 19 cross-functional departments work together in closer physical proximity than ever before. Together with the expansion of digital testing procedures, this increases both the pace and the quality of the integration processes. The intensive interlinking of the disciplines in one building makes the Electric Software Hub exceptional. It stands for simultaneous engineering and seamless integration at its best.
The new building has 70,000 square metres of space spread over eight levels. The inside of the Electric Software Hub reflects the entire electrics/electronics integration process of vehicle development. The employees ensure that all hardware and software components created in research and development work perfectly and interact seamlessly. From top to bottom - from code to product - software and hardware enter further and further into the vehicle until they are integrated into vehicle prototypes in the lower spaces. During this phase, there is an in-depth exchange with the vehicle plants worldwide so that new developments can be optimally transferred to series production.
- Dimensions: 78 x 133 x 39 metres
- Total building space: around 70,000 m² (gross floor space)
- Investment amount: over 200 million euros
- Employees: around 1,100, possible jobs in total: 1,554 at full capacity
- Floors: 1 basement, 8 user floors, including 3 workshop floors, 1 technical floor
- 3 accessible inner courtyards on level 6
- Spaces: Workshop 14,349 m² (also includes 333 vehicle parking spaces, incl. basement)
- Test benches: 2089 m²
- Office space: 12,264 m²
- Laboratories: 2,292 m²
- 5 x large-scale test benches for electric drive and charging systems
- E-infrastructure: 250 charging points incl. High Power Charging (HPC)
Voices on the Electric Software Hub
The transformation requires even more networked working. With the Electric Software Hub, we are creating the environment for flexibility and creativity. An open room concept, free choice of workplaces and various rest areas indoors and outdoors provide optimal working conditions for our engineers. This will allow the approximately 1,100 colleagues in our new building to unleash their full innovative power.
Sabine Kohleisen
Member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG, responsible for Human Resources and Director of Labour Relations
Digitalisation is the central building block of automotive production of the future. I am all the more pleased that the Electric Software Hub has now been created here at the Sindelfingen site near Factory 56, our ultra-modern and fully digitalised production facility. Here, colleagues from development and production jointly take the digitalisation of the company to a new level.
Jörg Burzer
Member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG, Production and Supply Chain Management
The Electric Software Hub will be the technical hub of digitalisation. With this software integration factory, we are consistently pursuing the path towards e-mobility and shaping the change towards a software-driven mobility provider. The investments that have been made here are not only of enormous importance for the future viability of the Sindelfingen location, but also a clear commitment to Germany as a business location - and the global crises make it very clear how crucial this is. As workers' representatives, we know that the lever for success is above all the know-how of the employees. Our experts on the topics of electromobility and software now find the optimal conditions here to be able to work together across departments and in a state-of-the-art working environment. We are also pleased that around 3,000 software engineers are being recruited worldwide - around 1,000 of them at the Sindelfingen site alone. We take the interests of our colleagues seriously and are committed to implementing them together with the management.
Ergun Lümali
Dep. Chairman of the Supervisory Board and Chairman of the Works Council of Mercedes-Benz Group AG