Zetsche optimistic as wealthy global buyers drive Mercedes sales
Christine Tierney/ The Detroit News
The global economy still has soft patches, but strong demand for luxury cars from the world’s richest consumers has pushed Daimler AG to the forefront of the industry recovery.
The parent of Mercedes-Benz cars has benefited from a rebound in U.S. premium car sales and surging demand in China, the biggest market by far for Mercedes’ flagship S-Class sedan.
After a solid recovery in Daimler car and truck sales last year, «it’s getting better in 2011,» Dieter Zetsche, chief executive of Daimler and also head of Mercedes, said at a briefing Tuesday in New York. «We are optimistic about the foreseeable future.»
This year, Mercedes has pulled ahead of archrivals BMW and Toyota Motor Corp.’s Lexus brand in the United States, and it’s outselling Audi more than two to one. In China, Mercedes’ sales rose 62 percent in the first five months of the year.
China is a huge market, and its affluent consumers tend to go for top-of-the-line models. Last year, Mercedes sold 13,000 S-Class cars in the United States for $90,000-plus, 7,500 in Germany and 25,000 in China, Zetsche said.
Daimler is also the world’s largest heavy truck maker — and that division is benefiting from rising business investment. Last year, Stuttgart, Germany-based Daimler earned 4.7 billion euros, or $6.8 billion, in net profit.
With its core businesses on an upswing, Daimler is investing in advanced technologies and trying to fix two troubled businesses at the top and bottom of its product range — its slow-selling Maybach supercars and its iconic but money-losing Smart minicars.
Speculation is rife about the prospects for Maybach, which sold 190 cars in 2010, compared with 2,711 cars sold by BMW’s Rolls-Royce, according to consulting firm IHS Automotive.
The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that Zetsche wasn’t prepared to spend the $1.4 billion needed to develop successors for the two-model lineup. It said Daimler was considering making Maybach a sub-brand of Mercedes to share costs.
Zetsche confirmed that the company is looking at «different scenarios» for Maybach, including cooperation with another niche supercar brand. He said no decision has been made.
While the Smart brand has struggled for most of its 17-year history, Zetsche said it was a strategically important vehicle line and would play a key role in Daimler’s push into electric cars.
«We are convinced that Smart is more feasible today than ever before,» Zetsche said. In the United States, Mercedes-Benz has taken over distribution of Smart cars from Roger Penske’s Penske Automotive Group.
Although Daimler has steered clear of full-scale mergers since the unhappy experience with Chrysler, it has formed a partnership with the Renault-Nissan Alliance to cooperate on certain projects, such as developing the next-generation Smart cars.
Daimler also has teamed up with China’s BYD Co. Ltd. to develop an electric car for China, where the government is pushing the development and production of clean electric cars.
«I’m certain China will do almost everything possible to set the market conditions necessary for electric cars,» Zetsche said.
Daimler, one of the pioneers in fuel-cell technology, plans to put a fuel-cell car on the market in 2014 and introduce a more affordable, next-generation model two years later.
«By mid-decade, I’m optimistic we can drive the cost into the range of a diesel-hybrid equivalent,» he said. A diesel hybrid can cost several thousand dollars more than a similar, gas-powered vehicle.
But compared with electric cars, fuel-cell models don’t have the same range limitations, Zetsche said.
ctierney@detnews.com
(313 222-1463
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