I dont consider myself a journalist and nobody else would consider myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of being an interviewer even though i have a day job of running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tick . Benz is led today by ola kaellenius, who is the first nongerman to run the company. He is a swedish but spent his entire career there, and is recognized for his intellect, drive, and ability to make things work in a large bureaucracy. There have been challenges, challenges from white ridehailing companies and electric companies. I have not bought a new car in 23 years. I like my mercedesbenz station wide station wagon. It does well and i dont have to worry about anybody stealing it. He told me, not a good salesman, that if i hold onto it, it is worth more as a vintage car. For the time being im not going to buy a new car, but if i do, he has convinced me one of his would be a good car to buy. ,ake sure everybody understands you are not a german, right . Ola i grew up in sweden, and i see we have the swedish ambassador here today, as well. [applause] david i could see you being the ceo of volvo, may be. [laughter] how did you get to be the ceo of a wellknown German Company . Has there ever been a nongerman head of daimler before . Ola no, and i was attracted by the three pointed star, but im the first nongerman to take on the role. David your predecessor was a very famous with a big walruslike mustache. Did you feel you needed to have that to get the job . [laughter] did you consider growing a mustache . Ola until this very moment, i had not considered it. [laughter] if it sells more cars, i might. [laughter] david tell everybody how you actually came to be the head of daimler and mercedes. Ola i grew up in sweden, in the south, in the third biggest city of sweden. Through my university studies, i came in contact with a company the company and have been within my whole career. David you joined in 1993, you had graduated graduate school. Ola that is correct. David did you start out by saying i think i could be the first swede that is the head of . Dialer dime will daimler . Ola i dont think that was my first thought. I wanted to find my feet in the beginning. I was impressed with the products. This company has given me a lot of opportunities and many years later the greatest opportunities. David the company is in three parts. Can you describe the three parts . Ola we essentially have three businesses. The one business i think everybody in the room knows is the car business. Vans, theenz cars and leading premium luxury brand in car ld, and the first our founders invented the car. Thats what everybody knows. Of course, we have the biggest truck and bus maker in the world as well, our second division. Our Third Division is the financial and Mobility Services that support industrial entities viewed david entities. David lets talk about the car division. Most people know it as mercedes benz. Where did the name mercedes come from . The company was after the founder, daimler. Came a5 years later famous austrian industrialist. Racing enthusiast. Daimler and his chief engineer at the time and said make me a racing engine. I want to go to nice and compete and win. They made him an engine and a car, he won the race come and the prerequisite was the car should be named after his daughter, mercedes. The rest is history. Daimler changed the name of the product not the company, the products. Name wasagine if her josephine. [laughter] ola if it had been brent hilda brunhilda. [laughter] mercedesbenz works very well. David how many cars a year does mercedesbenz cell . Sell . Ola 2. 4, 2. 5 million. David its Something Like 17 million in the united states, 28 million in china, and europe is roughly the same as the united states. The biggest market for cars in the world is china. I think i said they sold 28 million or something last year. Is that your biggest market . Ola our biggest market far and away. Were those cars manufactured in china . Ola most of them, some are manufactured in other places. We have operations in alabama in the u. S. And we are one of the biggest industrial exporters to china. We rest on local production but also a Global Production network. David you have lived in the u. S. As part of your career with daimler . Ola yes. Started my career after the training. Training period in alabama and i came back later as the ceo. David you became a big alabama football fan . Ola i became a very big alabama football fan. On monday of next week, watching lsu play clemson is difficult for me. [laughter] spoileduse we have been with so many championships, i guess we have to stand down on this one. [laughter] david if i had a car manufactured and alabama and an identical one minute manufactured in germany, could you tell difference between those cars . Ola no i could not, it is the same. We switched more than 25 years ago away from made in germany, which is a seal of quality, to say made by mercedes. If it is made by mercedes anywhere in the world, it is the same standard. David you make a lot of cars in the u. S. , but you make some outside the u. S. Arc tariffs something you care about very much . Ola tariffs are very important. We rely on Global Supply chains. Build aon being able to car in one place and export around the world, like we are doing with suvs and alabama, and have goods going back and forth. So yes, of course, global open markets are very important to us. David when you are in washington, do you talk to government officials and say by the way, we dont like tariffs . Ola everywhere we go, we have the same message. If we want the cake to be bigger, open markets have been a very good way to make a bigger cake. Whether we are in washington, beijing, brussels or berlin, it is the same. David market capitalization is an 86 million, and yours is like 59 billion. Is it embarrassing to have tesla with the big market cap . Ola maybe it should be encouragement. We want to create value for shareholders and we will not kick back and say is that market cap enough . We will go for it. Producehe cars you every year, 95 i assume are internal combustion, right . Ola at this stage. The Combustion Engine has worked so well. That is true. But we are on the verge of a new era of mobility, so it will change. David when will your electric carts really cars really hit the market . Put we were the ones who europe, to start with the first volume production electric car into the market, our brand smart. We were there and nobody else was there. Maybe we hesitated a little while but now we are in a massive product offensive. This cars in the market now, we will bring it to the states beginning next year. In the next two to three years, there will be a whole family of cars in this socalled eq range. David youre trying to be Carbon Neutral by 2036 or Something Like that . Ola we set an ambition called ambition 2039. What does that mean . We launched lester to say that in 20 years, we want to provide our new car fleet Carbon Neutral. Technologylly agnostic but Carbon Neutral. That seems far away for many people, even though it is a massive industrial change for the business. We have made an interim target 50 030 to have at least fully battery electric or plugin hybrids. With internal Combustion Engines, there is always a fight about the miles per gallon standard and what governments require cars to do. In this country there has been a debate, there were certain obama standards, trump has different standards, california has standards. What is your position on the mall per gallon standard . Ola with ambition 2039 that we resented last year, we have made a mental switch and a clear decision that our ambition is to provide co2 neutral mobility. It is not easy and there are a lot of challenges. We are on a journey. That is a worldwide journey. Almost regardless of which standard you have in different markets, the toughest one right now is in europe. We feel we will meet every one of those standards. That is why that is almost now a secondary debate to us. We will of course apply the same strategy across the world. David tesla has made a big start and their market capitalization is now 86 billion. Yours is like 59 billion. Is it embarrassing to you to have tesla have this big market cap . Not just to you. General motors and ford together, market cap is not the same, not as high as tesla. Why are the other Car Manufacturers being left behind . Ola maybe it should be an encouragement. Everyrse it is the job of company to create value, we want to create value for our shareholders. We are not going to sit back and just say that market cap is enough. We will go for. But there is a lot of uncertainties. The whole business is in transformation. Theres a lot of investment coming with this, uncertain market pressure on cost and margin. I understand there is a certain nervousness in the market. Startup that is going for the new thing can generate that kind of market cap, maybe there is potential for us. David if i had to buy stock today, should i buy daimler tesla . Ola i dont think youll ever have me recommend stocks of competitors. [laughter] i am a true believer in the company that i am working for, so go with us. [laughter] but of course, read the fine print. This is an unsolicited piece of advice. [laughter] we have a lot of disclaimers and Financial Information you need to read before making a decision. David what is the biggest challenge dime left faces today . Tesla . U. S. Regulations . Competition from other companies . Ola there are so many. Juggling a lot of balls at the same time. I would say the overriding transformation, almost disruption of the auto industry, is going co2 free. Challenge,hnological and industrial footprint challenge, and it is also a financial challenge paired to balance that out, i would say is the biggest one. David who is your biggest competitor . Ola we have the traditional germans. For some reason in southern germany, you have four brands, us and three others, who like to push each other. But you have sometimes new players like the one from california and others. We watch carefully what is owing on in the Competitive Landscape but try to make sure our decision as a brand that stands for the promise of the future, that we are always in the lead in this competition. David i have a car i got in 1997, i am still driving it. What using the residual value of that might be . [laughter] ola that is what we call a young timer. It is on the verge of becoming an oldtimer. David what is the best new feature you are working on that will excite people in a year or two . Ola if i told you that, we would have to do the men in black thing. [laughter] we have some spectacular things, obviously, but you keep your cards close to the chest and then when you have a big reveal, disputeada come here here it is. Ola what cardi david what cardi you drive . Ola the s class. David and you get to test drive the cars . Ola it is one of the benefits of the job. We test drive our cars all of the time. We drive all of the prototypes. David new cars are very appealing to some people because you get in them and they smell new pure [laughter] smell new. [laughter] do you do something to do that, is that part of the appeal . Are there places where that is not appealing . Ola it is part of the appeal. In traditional markets like europe and the u. S. , you love that. It is the u mainly smell. It feels fresh, like buying a new handbag or something. One country is different, china. They want to have the car neutral, not smelling like anything. There we go out of our way to engineered such that when you step in, you just have a neutral space. David when someone goes to buy a car, they go in and say i want a car with this color, this thing, do you have those cars made up in advance . Do people get them made specifically for their tastes these days . Ola it is different market to market. Our experiment in the u. S. Is that most times when a customer wants to buy a car, after they have done the research and done all of these things and they get to the dealer, they want to drive home. You have to have the car finished and spec there. But if you want a tailor made suit, is not a problem, and thats often in germany. David how much longer does it take to get that . Ola it depends on the model and the demand, but i would say at least three months. David what is the most popular color you make for your cars . We raceformula one, with the silver arrows, and silver has always been the color of mercedes. David what are the most exotic options you have that are part of the standard package . Ola never estimate the creativity and ingenuity of engineers. Once we make something standard, we come up with something new. One fun feature on the suvs we Just Launched last year is what we call an electronic chassis system that can individually regulate the height of each wheel instantly, and a camera reads the road in front of you so that when it sees a bum, adjusts before you hit it. It is like being on a flying carpet. That is one of those things. David all right, i will take a look about. [laughter] why should somebody buy a used car . You have new cars, is buying a used car a good idea . Aa it is if you buy certified preowned from mercedes. [laughter] they are made with good quality so they will last forever and a day. As i said, it is an aspirational brand for many. Especially in the german market. The first mercedes for many is a used mercedes, because you get in the price bracket where maybe you can do it. David suppose some of the is aspirational and they say, i want to say i have a mercedes but i dont have that much money. What is the cheapest price you can pay to get a mercedes . Ola around 30,000. David 30,000. Some dealers will sell a mercedes for 30,000, right . Ola a barebones entry model. David doesnt have a Steering Wheel . [laughter] ola yeah. B inll move from a to style. I am not costay constraint and i want to impress my friends with the best mercedes i can possibly get with every option and future. What would that cost . 35,000 . [laughter] ola in that case, youve got to go for it. The flagship is the s class of the upper end. If you want to be a little more ostentatious, you can do a special s class, and then we are talking 250,000. David how fast does it go . Ola it could probably go about 300 kilometers an hour but we put in a restrictor so it will not go faster than 250. It is enough. David ok. If i said i want a nice, germanmade car, whether it is made in alabama or south carolina, wherever it might be, but i dont want to buy a mercedes because i want to try Something Else among what should i buy . Should i buy a porsche or a bmw . Option . Walking in [laughter] [applause] david if you were giving advice to someone who wants to buy a car today, what would you give the advice to them about how to negotiate the best price and make sure they get the deal they want in the car they want . Ola as i said before, dont buy the price, by the product. Look at the product features. But slightly biased here, if you think about safety,