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Sunday, May 28, 2023

Head of Daimler Trucks & Buses Resigned

Head of Daimler Trucks & Buses Resigned

Wolfgang Bernhard โ€“ the head of Daimler Trucks & Buses and a member of Daimler AGโ€™s board of management โ€“ resigned last week โ€œat his own request and for personal reasons,โ€ according to the company.

In a statement, Daimler AG noted that Bernhard โ€œhas been released from his duties with immediate effectโ€ and that Dieter Zetsche will head Daimler Trucks & Buses until a successor is appointed.

Bernhard leaves big shoes to fill on the commercial vehicle side of Daimler AGโ€™s business. He took over the Mercedes-Benz Vans division in 2009 and then was tapped to join Daimler AGโ€™s board of management in February 2010.

Until March 2013, he served as the board of managementโ€™s member for production and procurement at Mercedes-Benz Cars & Mercedes-Benz Vans before taking over as head of Daimler Trucks & Buses in April 2013.

Bernhard had championed a variety of different initiatives at Daimler AG, including the connected truck, which he believed needed to be โ€œopened upโ€ amongst the worldโ€™s truck makers.

โ€œWe need open platforms eventually to make connected truck platform valuable to customers,โ€ he said during an event at the companyโ€™s headquarters last year. โ€œWe have to open it to everybody.โ€

He also believed that diesel power would remain โ€œthe most important โ€˜alternativeโ€™ in the United Statesโ€ in terms of truck power for some time to come.

โ€œWe still have 200 times more diesel stations than natural gas stations, and engines must be up for the task of hauling long distances,โ€ Bernhard explained in a speech a few years ago. โ€œMy alternative fuel is diesel because I donโ€™t see any replacement for diesel in the long run.โ€

He also called for more โ€œsensibleโ€ regulatory policies in the U.S. as well; a position that subsequently has become a major policy theme of the Trump administration.

โ€œIf the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] goes beyond the point where the customer is willing to pay for it, we are making a mistake,โ€ he said. โ€œThe customerโ€™s payback for buying new technology needs to be around 18 months. We should push EPA to use this rule of thumb and make sure we arenโ€™t doing stupid things.โ€