I got the below article from the Detroit News. Very interesting that DaimlerChrysler's R&D spending exceeds that of Toyota, Ford Motor, and even the big drug companies.

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Automaker DaimlerChrysler AG is the world's biggest corporate spender on research and development, but few European companies are following its example, the European Commission said Friday.

"On average, EU companies invest a smaller proportion of their sales in R&D," the EU said after it surveyed 1,400 companies worldwide.

DaimlerChrysler invested 5.66 billion euros ($4.8 billion) in research and development last year, slightly more than U.S.-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. and Ford Motor Co. or Japan's Toyota Motor Corp.

But Europe's share of total research and development spending by business and government is actually slipping, from 1.92 percent of gross domestic product in 2003 to 1.90 percent last year.

"The message is very simple. The situation is serious," said EU Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik.

EU governments promised to boost research and development -- and the bloc's economy -- by raising spending to 3 percent by 2010, a target it seems likely to miss.

Europe's research budget is behind Japan's 3.15 percent, the United States' 2.59 percent and only just ahead of China's 1.31 percent, the EU head office said.

The figures show that the EU's research and development spending is too reliant on government handouts, it said.

"In Europe, the part coming from the private sector is much lower than the average in Japan and the United States. It's even lower than China," Potocnik said.

Only 54.3 percent of Europe's R&D spending comes from businesses, well behind Japan at 74.5 percent, the United States at 63.1 percent and China at 60.1 percent.

"A kind of healthy relation is two-thirds of the funding from the business sector and one-third from the public sector," he said.

However, EU figures show a turnaround in investment from a 2 percent drop in total spending in 2003 to an 0.7 percent increase last year.

Nine of the top 25 worldwide investors are based in the EU, and 45 percent of the top 700 companies in the EU increased their research and development investment by more than 5 percent this year, the Commission said.

However, this spending is top heavy, dominated by a few big players. In IT hardware, for example, Nokia Oyj, Ericsson AB, Alcatel SA, Infineon Technologies AG and ASML Holding NV spend 86 percent of all R&D for the sector.

The EU said European companies are less present in industrial sectors that invest more than 5 percent of their sales in research and development, such as biotechnology, health and information technology.

Sweden, Finland and Germany lead the pack on R&D spending, with poorer eastern European countries Estonia, Poland and Slovakia trailing at the bottom of the list.

The research and development figures are based on the amount spent by companies based in Europe, regardless of where in the world they invest their money.

The EU's scoreboard looked at 700 companies based in the EU and 700 outside.

On the Net:

The Scoreboard of EU Industrial R&D Investment:

 

Keep an eye on Honda. Historically, nobody spends more on R&D then they do.

http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosins...tos-138740.htm