Daimler Truck Holding AG Board Chairman Martin Daum said June 22 that his team continues to face “enormous” supply chain headwinds and cost pressures but added that he remains “pretty confident” for 2022 because of underlying demand and the company’s ongoing ability to pass along price increases.
“It’s one of the worst years ever in my long career in trucking where we sometimes have to touch a truck three, four times to add the missing parts,” Daum said on CNBC, elaborating on a theme he discussed in March, when he said Daimler Truck had 10,000 nearly finished trucks waiting for key parts and that executives had enlisted helicopters to fly components to some of its plants.
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Such investments are still paying off, though: Daum said he’s not seeing demand fall off for Daimler Truck’s lineup. In North America, where the company sells Freightliner and Western Star trucks, he added that demand is being supported by the need to replace about 200,000 older trucks. (By way of comparison, Daimler Truck last year sold 162,000 trucks in North America and expect to grow that number to between 175,000 and 195,000 this year.)
“That, in my opinion, makes me optimistic that we will see a not-too-bad 2023,” Daum said on the day Daimler Truck held its first annual shareholders’ meeting since being listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. “And ‘not too bad’ is a German expression for, ‘It could be a good 2023.’”
In additional comments to Daimler Truck’s shareholders, Daum also reiterated his team’s belief in the promise—in terms of safety and sustainability but also commercially—of autonomous trucks. The company has been working with Waymo on a series of trials and its Torc Robotics subsidiary is testing out an autonomous driving software system.
See also: Fleets could soon have autonomous driving products to choose from“They have very significant economic potential for us as a company and also for our customers,” he said. “We are making important progress.”
The goal, Daum added, is to have Daimler Truck—which employs more than 100,000 people globally—begin large-scale production of long-distance autonomous trucks by the end of this decade. North America will again play a key role on that front: Daum said the company’s first target market for such vehicles will be the connections between the region’s logistics hubs.
Shares of Daimler Truck (Ticker: DTG) fell nearly 4% in Frankfurt trading June 22. Year to date, they have lost nearly 20% of their value, shrinking the company’s market capitalization to about $21.5 billion.
