Ride instead of crackdown: With this strategy, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche wants to personally survive the diesel affair. It harms the Group and its industry in the long term.
Tuesday, 12.06.2018
16:36 clock
It could have been a liberation blow for the Daimler Group and its tens of thousands of righteous employees. By the announcement, three quarters of a million very likely to call fraudulent diesel vehicles in the workshops, would have CEO Dieter Zetsche on Monday can signal: We understand! We clear the way and break with a past in which management and parts of the developers have strayed from the path of the honest merchant and engineer.
The Daimler boss could have put an end to the dishonesty with which for many years loyal customers of the manufacturer were sold manipulated cars. Vehicles whose exhaust treatment was designed to be cheaper and to bring greater profits to the Group – at the expense of the health of hundreds of thousands of people who need to breathe too high levels of nitric oxide in the cities. It would also have been a moment of departure for the whole industry: away from a criminal past, instead into a sustainable future with clean, and sometimes even climate-friendly, means of transportation.
But then comes Zetsche from the Federal Ministry of Transport, in which he has just negotiated a deal with Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU), and makes in one sentence all chances for a fresh start destroyed. “Open legal issues are still clarified in the opposition proceedings,” says the Daimler chief.
The boss does not deserve this boss
Zetsche tries to get some time. His motto is: The government considers the software illegal, we consider it legal. It will take two to three years for the instances to take effect. Had Zetsche wanted an immediate legal clarification, then he would have had to sue for the immediate execution of the official recall. Within weeks he would have got a decision. That would be – and his lawyers know only too well – most likely negative for Daimler failed. That’s why Zetsche does not want this clarification at the moment, but accepts a software update.
This makes the manager look deeply. He indicates that he still has not rediscovered the moral-legal compass for himself and his company. This CEO has not earned a company with such a proud tradition.
The Daimler boss also brings the German Federal Government into the bredouille, It stands internationally because of the frauds of its flagship industry with its back to the wall. US President Donald Trump targeted Daimler in the commercial dispute and threatened he did not want to see any Mercedes cars on Fifth Avenue in New York. With regard to the exhaust gas scandal, he could argue that the cars also pollute the air and endanger the health of Americans.
What Zetsche, other car managers and their lobby have not understood: their scams have made them vulnerable to consumer complaints and recourse claims. The US judiciary is now right and moral on their side.
Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer and his officials must now continue to test, Model after model until they have identified all the Mercedes vehicles that have manipulated exhaust systems. In this lengthy process, the management problem of the Daimler Group will hopefully be resolved.