Daimler's Dieter Zetsche Named CES Keynoter

TWICE Staff -- TWICE, 9/6/2011

Arlington, Va. - Dieter Zetsche, chairman of the board of management of Daimler AG and head of Mercedes-Benz Cars, will deliver a keynote address at the 2012 International CES, according to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).

Owned and produced by CEA, CES will be held Jan. 10-13, 2012, in Las Vegas.

Zetsche's keynote address is slated for 11 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 10, at the Las Vegas Hilton Theater. The 2012 show marks Mercedes-Benz's first CES keynote address. All 2012 CES keynotes will take place in the Venetian and the Las Vegas Hilton Theater.

"Dieter Zetsche is an iconic and instrumental leader in the automotive sector, where innovative technology unveiled each year at CES is a vital component of today's driving experience," said Gary Shapiro, CEA president and CEO, in a statement. "We are thrilled to welcome the innovation leader Mercedes-Benz to the 2012 CES keynote program and look forward to hearing Dieter's vision on the interplay between automotive innovation and the digital realm."

Automotive technology will be a major focus at the 2012 CES. Electric vehicle technologies, products and services will be featured in the GoElectricDrive TechZone. In addition, the Location Based Services TechZone will return to the CES show floor as the premier location for providers of current location-based custom technologies in both portable and in-car navigation devices.

The Safe Driver TechZone will also be featured at the 2012 CES, and will highlight products that assist in auto-collision avoidance, land-drift assistance, parking, speed monitoring, hands-free, text-to-voice, driver-drowsiness detection and more.

The relationship between the automotive and consumer technology markets continues to grow. In 2010, shipment revenues of total automotive technology surpassed $9 billion as factory-installed systems totaled more than $5.5 billion, CEA said. This year it estimates total automotive shipment revenues will exceed $9.3 billion, while shipment revenues of factory-installed systems will total more than $5.9 billion.

For more information and to register for the 2012 International CES, visit http://cesweb.org.