The most innovative car company in the world this year is Mercedes-Benz AG ahead of Volkswagen and Tesla. While VW stands out in the area of volume brands, Tesla is ahead in autonomous driving.
New ideas and inventions are generally seen as driving forces for society as well as for the economy – and of course also for the car industry. The Center of Automotive Management (CAM) at the University of Applied Sciences in Bergisch Gladbach (North Rhine-Westphalia) has been analyzing the innovative performance of car manufacturers and suppliers every year since 2005. Together with the auditing and consulting company PwC Germany, the CAM has been honoring the most innovative corporations, brands and products in the industry for eleven years.
Mercedes-Benz AG wins the title as the most innovative car company in 2022, the brand of the same name is awarded in four other categories. With an index value of 134, the Stuttgart-based group ranks first, as it did in 2019, ahead of Volkswagen AG (125) and – at a distance – Tesla (87). SAIC (71), last year's fifth, has moved up one place to fourth place as the best Chinese company, ahead of Geely (70). After fourth place last year, BMW achieved sixth place this time.
Mercedes-Benz with the highest number of world firsts
According to the current CAM study, Mercedes-Benz has the highest rate of world innovations among the global players in the automotive industry in the current analysis period (this is the year 2021). The EQS model shines with the lowest power consumption among the battery-powered luxury vehicles. In the area of lighting systems and steering, it offers innovative functions that can be regularly updated over-the-air and are therefore convincing in the technology field of connectivity.
According to the study, two German manufacturers, Mercedes-Benz and VW, are in the lead among the groups and they also lead many technology categories with their core brands. But for the first time, two Chinese companies are among the top 5 automobile manufacturers. Among the volume brands, the area of electric drives is also dominated by Chinese brands such as BYD or Maxus, which occupy the first three places.
“These are the latest findings of a catching-up process by Chinese players that has been going on for years in terms of innovative strength. Newcomers such as Xpeng or Nio are now also trying to compete with the German brands in particularly innovative segments and have Tesla as a role model,” comments Felix Kuhnert, Automotive Leader at PwC Germany.
“In addition to electromobility, a constantly updatable ecosystem of networked services is becoming a key success factor for automobile manufacturers,” says Stefan Bratzel, Director of CAM. To do this, all established manufacturers would have to “massively expand their core competencies in these future fields and enter into strategic cooperation with relevant digital players”.
For the year 2021, the CAM analyzed the innovations of 28 global car manufacturers and newcomers with around 80 car brands. A total of 657 individual innovations were evaluated. Among these are 179 world firsts. Criteria such as maturity, originality, customer benefit and degree of innovation were included in the evaluation.
Tesla is the leader in autonomous driving and connected services
In the field of autonomous driving/driver assistance systems, the Californian manufacturer Tesla is the most innovative premium brand in the CAM study. Tesla is a pioneer in autonomous driving at Level 2+, in which the vehicle can drive largely independently on the freeway and in city traffic, but the driver must constantly monitor the system. As part of a beta version, Tesla already offers this functionality in its models (including the Model 3) for a limited number of users.
Tesla will also be an honoree in the new Connected Services category, which counts the connected, vehicle-related services in the CAM score. Tesla covers all important areas from charging services with the global Supercharger fast charging network to infotainment with Apple's arcade game platform to data-based car insurance with real-time tariffs. Furthermore, autonomous driving and parking functions at Tesla can already be updated over-the-air and are therefore available as a service.
Suppliers with pioneering technological innovations in future fields
As part of the CAM study also evaluates around 400 innovations from automotive suppliers. The German BASF group leads a ranking of technical innovations to increase the range of electric cars at lower costs. The machine builder Kautex Textron from Bonn impresses with software-controlled cleaning sensors for environmental sensors. Supplier giant Bosch stands out with its Ridecare carsharing services. A new series function from Bosch in carsharing vehicles enables smoke and damage detection via the Internet using cloud-based data analysis and artificial intelligence.