Traton looks to the future at AGM
Scania and MAN parent company Traton held its public ‘virtual’ annual general meeting last month, in which new CEO Matthias Gründler announced that the boards of the two European truck companies, plus the South American Volkswagen Truck & Bus, would have greater autonomy over their own destinies.
“Our brands need freedom in order to hit their profitability targets,” he said.
He distinguished between the profiles of the two European brands.
“Scania is an innovation leader for sustainable transportation solutions in the premium segment. As a reliable partner for all requirements in the commercial vehicle segment, MAN offers a complete range of products — from light-duty commercial vehicles to heavy trucks.”
Emphasising the importance of electrics, he said: “From now on, Scania will be launching further electric vehicles every year, including for construction trucks and long-haul transportation.
“MAN is manufacturing a small series of its fully electric eTGM truck.”
He added: “An important issue we are currently looking at is the positioning of MAN. I am confident that there is a strong lion inside MAN. But we have to awaken it. Because it is also clear: right now the company is not where it could be.”
Traton is also set to get further involved in autonomous driving. Pointing out that Scania had already launched a concept truck, the AXL – which didn’t just dispense with a driver, but also the cab – for use in mining operations, and a co-operation with Swedish research institute RISE – he announced a new partnership with US company TuSimple.
“TuSimple is a leader in autonomous trucks,” he said.
“We will shortly begin the first test drives with Scania trucks in Sweden. We acquired a stake in the company to underscore our commitment to this technology.”
Turning to the impact of the Covid crisis, Mr Gründler reported that demand for heavy trucks fell in Europe by 44 per cent in the first half of 2020, while the decline in Latin America was 20 per cent.
For Traton, unit sales fell by 37 per cent and order intake was 27 per cent down. Sales revenue fell 26 per cent to just over €10 billion. This translated to an operating loss of €220 million, representing a negative 2.2 per cent return on sales.
This was in stark contrast to previous years, Mr Gründler said: “The results Traton achieved between 2016 and 2019 show that we are on the right track. We reported record unit sales, sales revenue, and operating profit last year. Unit sales rose by four per cent to just over 242,000 units compared to 2018.
“All brands contributed to this growth. Sales revenue also increased by four per cent and came in at €26.9 billion. At €1.9 billion, operating profit grew by 25 per cent. Operating return on sales rose by 1.2 percentage points and stood at seven per cent.”
Mr Gründler added that the opportunity to replace older trucks and buses with electric vehicles provided the company with a route by which it would return to profit. It was also ambitious to build a presence in North America, the world’s most profitable truck market, by taking control of Navistar, and its co-operation with Hino in Japan allowed for advantages in procurement and collaboration in technology such as batteries, engines and other systems.
