Autoliv has accounted for virtually all of the major technological breakthroughs in our industry over the last twenty years. This has contributed to establishing Autoliv as the industry’s global sales leader with superior profitability. Now the pursuit for new cost-efficient safety technologies continues – in addition to implementing further improvements and cost reductions in existing products.
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During 2004, gross expenditures for R,D&E (research, development and customer application engineering) rose by 11% to $461 million, corresponding to 7.5% of sales compared to 7.9% in 2003 and 6.4% in 2000. Of the 2004 amount, $93 million was related to customer-funded engineering projects and crash tests (compared to $112 million in 2003). Net of this income, we spent $368 million corresponding to 6.0% of sales, compared to 5.8% in 2003 and 4.8% in 2000. |
According to the World Health Organization over one million people are killed in traffic accidents every year throughout the world, despite safer vehicles and safer roads as well as the advent of airbags. If the trend continues, twice as many will perish by 2020 and road traffic accidents will become the third leading cause of death (compared to the ninth position today).
Our Research, Development and Engineering (R,D&E) stretches all the way from pre-crash projects to in-crash and post-crash projects.
Our pre-crash systems include the Active Seat Belt, which pulls in a few inches of webbing when it senses an imminent crash. It also releases the webbing if the driver manages to avoid the impact.
New in-crash systems are the Pedestrian Protection Airbag (PPA) and an Active Hood, which deploys upward to provide a flexible surface to prevent the pedestrian’s head from hitting the hard engine block. Our post-crash systems include “mayday systems” such as an On-Call System, which automatically calls an emergency center after a crash.
In addition to these projects and products in passive safety that are aimed at injury prevention, we are developing a series of active safety systems aimed at accident prevention. These systems operate also before the pre-crash phase when the crash is still potentially avoidable. In this area, we develop such systems as an infrared-based Night Vision System and a Pre-Crash Radar.
Autoliv holds just over 3,200 patents which is consistent with recent years after an increase of approximately 50% a few years’ ago (partly due to a new patent policy).
The patents, which cover several product areas and technologies, expire on varying dates through the year 2024. The expiration of any single patent is not expected to have any material adverse effect on Autoliv’s financial position.
We also hold a few trademarks, but trademarks are less important than patents in our industry, since products are not sold directly to the car buyers.