Daimler AG expects to spend more than $21 billion on research and development of new technology over the next years, the company’s chief executive said during the company’s annual meeting in Berlin. “These efforts are all the more important because there is no single technology that’s clearly superior to all of the others,” Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche told the company’s shareholders. “There are several routes to the mobility of tomorrow,” said Zetsche, who noted number of automobiles in the world is expected to grow five times faster than the population. In 2007, Daimler invested more than $6 billion in research and development and another $2.7 million for environmental protection. “In the coming years we’ll increase these budgets even more and by 2010 we’ll invest ($21 billion) in research and development,” he said. “To date, Daimler has made more progress with fuel cell technology than any another automaker and we plan to expand our lead in this area,” Zetsche added.

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