Daimler CEO stressed the importance of low-emission technologies and innovation on Friday, telling CNBC that the automotive industry is “in the middle of a transformation.”
“In addition to the things we know well – to build, frankly, the most desirable cars in the world – there are two technological trends that we are doubling: electrification and digitization,” Ola Källenius told CNBC’s Annette Weisbach.
The Stuttgart-based company is “pouring billions into these new technologies,” he said, adding that “they will lead the way to CO2-free driving.” He said this decade would be “transformative”.
Källenius’ comments came on the same day that Daimler announced that its Mercedes-Benz Cars division had sold more than 160,000 plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles in 2020, a tripling of the previous year.
In the fourth quarter of 2020 alone, the German car giant said it had sold about 87,000 xEVs – a term that refers to both connected hybrids and all-electric vehicles.
Daimler added that the share of xEVs in Mercedes-Benz Cars will reach 7.4% in 2020, up from just 2% in 2019. Looking to the future, it predicts that the share of xEVs in Mercedes-Benz Cars will increase to about 13% this year, with more new models to be launched in 2021.
“We have tripled sales of plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars,” Källenius said in a statement on the company’s website. “Demand for these vehicles has risen sharply, especially towards the end of the year,” he added.
New goals, symbolic changes
The increase in sales of electric vehicles for Daimler comes at a time when both politicians and companies are looking to adopt low- and zero-emission modes of transport.
Last month, the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, unveiled its Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy. Among other things, it aims to have at least 30 million zero-emission cars on the road by 2030.
Drivers’ habits seem to be changing. In the UK – which recently announced plans to stop selling new diesel and petrol cars and vans by 2030 – the demand for road users for battery-powered electric vehicles increased by 185.9% in 2020, with 108,205 new registrations, according to the Company of Automobile Manufacturers and Traders.
Sales of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles reached 66,877 last year, an increase of 91.2%, according to SMMT figures. The industry body said that the combined hybrid electric cars with battery and plug-in “accounted for more than one in 10 registrations – compared to about one in 30 in 2019”.
For December, the Tesla Model 3 – an electric vehicle – was the best-selling car in the UK
In Norway, the absorption of electric vehicles is even more pronounced than in the UK. Reuters, citing the Norwegian Road Federation, reported that battery-powered electric vehicles accounted for 54.3% of new car sales in Norway last year. This, it was said, was a global record.
Daimler is one of many large car companies that want to play big parts in the electric vehicle sector and challenge Elon Musk’s Tesla.
The Volkswagen Group, for example, is investing 35 billion euros (about $ 42.86 billion) in electric vehicles and says it wants to launch about 70 fully electric models by 2030.
Nissan is also looking to step up its EV offering. In an interview with CNBC last month, Ashwani Gupta, the company’s chief operating officer, said it had reached a “turning point” when it came to electrifying vehicles.
Gupta added that the Japanese company is “ready to address this opportunity around the world.”