With Dr. Becker, Vice President Sustainability, Mobility at BMW Group, FZD has gained a well-known expert and experienced top manager as new visiting lecturer. With his lecture “Sustainability and Circularity of Vehicles” students learn first-hand, how requirements in the automotive industry are changing against the backdrop of decarbonization, circularity and manifold regulatory requirements and technological innovations.

Our completely redesigned lecture “Ride & Handling” as well as the new lecture “Driver Assistance Systems and Automated Driving” jump started with excellent evaluation results. In summer 2025, we will add one more lecture to our portfolio focusing on the software defined vehicle. My colleague Prof. Klaus Hofmann from the Integrated Electronics System Lab and I will teach that lecture together. Moreover, FZD will join the vehicle tutorial at the Lausitzring which my colleague Prof. Günther Prokop from TU Dresden has established as a benchmark event which is powered by many OEMs.

With the handover of a Mercedes-Benz Actros in July, our partnership with Daimler Truck reached a new dimension. Together, we have now the chance to collect the data which enable science to push assistance systems and automated driving functions for the truck business forward.

The success of our DFG Research Group (Forschungsgruppe) “MiRoVA” led by my colleague Prof. Frank Flemisch from RWTH Aachen University is another highlight and of utmost importance in times where public funding has been cut in dramatic ways.

My personal goal is to establish FZD as the best “school” for the automotive industry (management and experts tracks). So, I am particularly proud of our latest alumni who managed to get fascinating positions – among others with Daimler Truck and Mercedes-AMG.

Best regards from Darmstadt

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Steven Peters in September 2024