The Supervisory Board of Daimler AG has given its full support to the group’s business plan. This means that the planned cuts to fixed costs will continue, but also that the group will invest no less than € 70 billion over the next five years. How exactly that amount is spent, however, remains a bit abstract.
According to Daimler, the lion’s share of the € 70 billion will go to Mercedes-Benz Cars. Part of the total investments is intended for Daimler Trucks, in order to accelerate the plans for emission-free transport. Daimler does not disclose exactly how the amount has been allocated and in which areas exactly will be invested. The description remains quite abstract with “accelerating the transformation towards electrification and digitization”. This includes not only Research & Development, but also, for example, the conversion of factories for the production of EVs. In addition to the € 70 billion, an additional € 1 billion has been made available by Daimler until 2025 to include the workforce in the transformation of the company. Its ultimate goal is to “protect jobs and knowledge”.
In addition to the investments, Daimler will also cut corners: the Germans want to reduce their fixed costs by 20 percent over the next five years. In addition, Mercedes-Benz will mainly focus on the luxury segment in the coming years. The profit margins are a lot higher there. There will be more Maybach models, but also electrified and fully electric AMGs. In addition, there are a lot of electric newcomers in the pipeline, all of which are on the already announced EVA architecture: the EQS, EQE and SUV versions of those cars. The smaller EQA and EQB share their base with the GLA and GLB, respectively. From 2025, those models will be on the MMA platform that is under development.