Electric SUV EQC from Daimler
With the EQC, Mercedes now has its first pure electric SUV on offer.
(Photo: Bloomberg / Getty Images)
Munich Runs in the giant world of the world Daimler somewhere something wrong, send the company grandees in Stuttgart, the cavalry. “If we can do something, then task forces,” says a manager of the Mercedes manufacturer proudly: “We are world champions in crisis management.”
The special forces of the auto-conglomerate are by the most capable minds among the 300,000 employees of the Dax Group As a rule, it eliminates and eliminates every problem – fast, sustainable and without a public outcry.
In the USA, several crisis units have been struggling for months against difficulties in ramping up the production of important models such as the next generation of the high-yield SUV GLE or the new van bestseller Sprinter. Yet they barely made any progress.
One of the reasons: Many specialists did not make it at all or only with a delay to the front. The US initially denied them the necessary visas, it says from group circles: “That has limited us”.
Missing or delayed issued work permits, as measured by the many other construction sites Daimlerjust a little problem. But the example shows by way of example how many places it has caught on the Swabians in the past nine months. Daimler declined to comment on internal events.
In the meantime, visa worries are no longer an issue anyway. For the car manufacturer put the customs wars of US President Donald Trump, the upcoming Brexit, more complex vehicle certifications and contaminated sites in the diesel scandal.
“Bottomed out”
The new leadership team around CEO Ola Källenius and CFO Harald Wilhelm had to spend the second profit warning in July within a few weeks. 4.2 billion euros of special effects are weighing on the balance sheet. The stock is now languishing at a five-year low.
But while investors are increasingly withdrawing trust from Daimler, the company is likely to have the worst in its day-to-day business, it says in unison. “If nothing completely unexpected happens, we would have to be able to grow again,” says one manager: “We have bottomed out”.
The first clear signs are already there: In July, Daimler scored with its car division Mercedes the first sales increase this year, Nearly 190,000 vehicles sold the brand to kick off the third quarter. This is an increase of almost 13 percent compared to the same month last year.
Sales are still down 2.4 percent over the first seven months, but they are shrinking. The trend is positive.
Mercedes underpins its position as the strongest car brand in the world. A weak demand, it is said confidently from the leading cadres, have never existed. The pull effect of the star is unbroken. But the Swabians were only able to deliver some of their most sought-after models for weeks to a limited extent. That diminished the paragraph. Especially in the segment of sporty off-road vehicles (SUV), but there is now an “improved vehicle availability,” announces the Group.
Internally it is said that the massive supplier problems, which gave it in the American mammoth work in Tuscaloosa with the production start-up of the new version of the GLE, are largely solved. If this finding is true, three revised derivatives of the model in Alabama should roll off the production line this year: GLE Coupé, GLS and GLS Maybach should provide additional growth impulses.
Battle message to Tesla
Daimler CEO Källenius therefore expects a “noticeable improvement” in the business in the second half of the year. The Swede also wants electric cars finally to the California electric car pioneer Tesla catch. Although the Mercedes now has its first pure electric SUV with the EQC. The model was still provisionally forced to the same vehicle architecture with the burners.
At the German car show IAA in Frankfurt in September, Daimler should now give an outlook on its real electric platform “EVA 2”, which was designed solely for electric cars and allows completely new design and interior designs. To make the formal language of tomorrow tangible, Mercedes will probably present the concept car for the luxury sedan EQS at the fair, according to company circles.
The future electric flagship of the Mercedes fleet is scheduled to go into production at the beginning of the next decade and with a range of 500 to 700 kilometers TeslaTechnology in the shade.
The Stuttgart want to bring 2022 more than ten pure Stromer on the market. But because the development and expansion of this electric fleet binds tens of billions, the Group has to save massively elsewhere.