EUR 10 million worth of investments undertaken between 2019 and 2021 enhanced the Tofaş R&D Center’s ability to develop more competitive products.

CONTINUOUSLY INVESTING IN INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY

The Tofaş R&D Center’s target is to be a globally competitive product and technology development center. The center seeks to realize this target by successfully formulating projects for new products that address market needs and then supplying such products to market and by improving existing products in line with expectations. In order to achieve these objectives, the Tofaş R&D Center gives importance to working within an expanded R&D network and value-creation chain that encompasses both universities and co-designing suppliers and engineering firms. The center also plans and undertakes innovative-technology research projects so as to support its priorities.

In addition to developing entirely original products of its own, the Tofaş R&D Center also contributes to Turkey’s economy, industry, and R&D know-how by exporting engineering services.

The center has become a world-class motor vehicle research and development facility with a total of 20,110 m2 of laboratory and office space. It enjoys a commanding position among Stellantis Group R&D facilities by virtue of its product-engineering experience, its new-product development competencies, and the diverse capabilities of its high-tech laboratories.

Playing an important role in the conduct of product-development projects on a global scale, the Tofaş R&D Center also creates added value for Turkey’s economy, industry, and R&D know-how. In the 2020 round of the R&D and Design Centers Performance Index Awards, the Tofaş R&D Center placed second in the top “251 or more R&D personnel employed” category. Tofaş remains the only automotives company whose R&D facilities have made it into this ranking.

As of end-2021, the Tofaş R&D Center employed more than 600 people, 134 of whom held at least a master’s degree.

As of end-2021, the total value of the Tofaş R&D Center’s investments in design and testing equipment for use in the areas of vehicle concept, styling, bodywork, interiors, suspension systems, engines, emissions, vibration, and acoustics amounted to more than EUR 58 million. EUR 10 million worth of investments undertaken between 2019 and 2021 increased the center’s physical testing capabilities and capacity.

In the Turkishtime “R&D 250” survey of companies in Turkey ranked according to their R&D expenditures, Tofaş placed among the top three firms as measured by their R&D outlays.

GREATER COMPETENCIES IN PRODUCT DESIGN AND MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGIES

The Tofaş R&D Center possesses all of the product engineering design and analysis competencies that may be needed to completely design a vehicle from start to finish. In line with the Tofaş R&D Center’s strategic objectives, the company likewise supports research projects that will lead to gains in product development and manufacturing technology knowhow.

The research studies of the Tofaş R&D Center are addressed towards Tofaş’s strategic priorities, focusing on three cross-cutting grounds:

• meeting social mobility needs
• environmental sustainability,
• increased productivity.

Studies on productivity give priority to digital optimization of processes and low-cost automation in all areas. The Tofaş R&D center’s focus on environmental sustainability addresses such issues as vehicle electrification and reducing vehicles’ weights and energy consumption.

JOINT PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT COLLABORATIONS

A prerequisite for Turkey’s increasing its international visibility and viability as a product development center is an ability to simultaneously address all of the elements of the R&D value-creation chain. This is why Tofaş gives special importance to joint design and development projects, to marshaling the resources of local engineering firms, and to working together with universities. Undertaking university-industry collaboration projects in parallel with its technology-development operations, Tofaş R&D collaborated with sixteen different universities on about 130 projects in the last fifteen years.

In the many projects that are undertaken with the support of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey and of the European Union, the Tofaş R&D Center also works together with university faculty members as well as with the Stellantis Research Center and various international design centers. With the addition of eight EU research projects that were approved in 2020 and 2021, the number of such projects in which the Tofaş R&D Center has taken or is taking part reached 29 as of end-2021. The number of international project partners with which the center has worked in the conduct of these projects is now more than 230.

The Tofaş R&D Center’s goal is to increase the number of patents that it applies for every year by coming up with new projects and innovative ideas that create added value. As a result of the innovative work carried out by the Tofaş R&D Center, new applications for 39 patents were submitted in 2021.

In the conduct of its 2020 operations, the Tofaş R&D Center was intensively engaged in model-improvement projects for the Fiorino, Doblò, and Egea lines. 350 of the Tofaş R&D Center’s engineers are currently involved in the product-development processes for a variety of vehicles for other members of the Stellantis group.