Tofaş R&D Center enjoys a commanding position among Stellantis Group R&D facilities by virtue of the diverse capabilities of its high-tech laboratories.

CONTINUOUSLY INVESTING IN INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY

The Tofaş R&D Center is fully equipped with all of the knowledge, skills, experience, and resources needed to handle all aspects of vehicle research and development from initial concept and design to finished-product improvements. In addition to providing R&D for Tofaş’s own models, the Tofaş R&D Center also plays a role in the product-development processes of other vehicles in the Stellantis ecosystem.

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.

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.

As of end-2022, the Tofaş R&D Center employed more than 600 people, 159 of whom held a master’s or a PhD degree.

As of end-2022, 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.

In the conduct of its 2022 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.

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.

When developing products and processes, the Tofaş R&D Center engages with stakeholders in different sectors so as to ensure that the projects on which it is working are conducted effectively and that any social and/or environmental issues which may arise are dealt with. With the benefit of European Union and TÜBİTAK support and the business opportunities created by both platforms, Tofaş develops high added-value, innovative, and ecofriendly projects. With the addition of 13 EU research projects that were approved in 2021 and 2022, the number of such projects in which the Tofaş R&D Center has taken or is taking part reached 31 as of end-2022. The number of international project partners with which the center has worked in the conduct of these projects is now more than 260.

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 71 patents were submitted in 2022.

TOFAŞ R&D İZMİR BRANCH

Tofaş R&D Center’s newly-created Product-Development & Software branch commenced operations in İzmir Institute of High Technology’s Technopark İzmir Software Center in 2022.

Through its new İzmir-based R&D branch, Tofaş plans to expand the scope of its automotive software development operations so as to undertake increasingly more responsibilities in such areas as designing components and systems for different brands and models, carrying out virtual & physical verifications, and prototyping across the entire Stellantis ecosystem. Tofaş R&D İzmir will be working on calibration & safety issues, data-science & AI-based intelligent vehicle architecture, autonomous & driverless vehicle solutions, connectivity solutions, automotive cybersecurity, and management & optimization algorithms in the provision of fleet services. At a time when the place and importance of software in product-development processes are becoming increasingly greater, Tofaş envisions addressing the global demand for automotive software by becoming an integral part of Stellantis’s software-based growth strategy through its İzmir R&D branch while also continuing to respond to the software needs of its home market.