Hyperdrive
Daimler’s New CEO Warns Electric-Car Shift Will Be Painful
- German icon’s new chief plans to cut jobs to revive margins
- Daimler needs to end ‘spray and pray’ strategy, analyst says
An employee passes engines at a Mercedes-Benz assembly line in Sindelfingen, Germany.
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Daimler AG’s new chief executive officer warned there will be no quick fix for the automaker’s struggle to revive squeezed profit margins during a costly shift to electric and self-driving cars.
After two rapid-fire profit warnings earlier this year, Ola Kallenius said on Thursday that the German icon’s earnings would remain under pressure for the next two years. The Swede laid out a plan to gradually lift margins by capping investment and cutting jobs to save more than 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion).