Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of Daimler Truck, I would like to welcome you to the Analyst and Investor Q&A session of our annual results conference with Martin Daum and Claus Bässler. You have probably all joined our presentation prior to this Q&A session. Just a quick reminder, all documents, including the annual report, are available on the Daimler Truck Investor Relations website. Later today, you also will find a more comprehensive virtual presentation on that site. Now, before we start, the operator will explain the procedure.
Welcome to the Daimler Truck Global Conference Call. At our customer's request, this conference will be recorded. The replay of the conference will also be available as an on-demand webcast in the Investor Relations section of the Daimler Truck website. I would like to remind you that this teleconference is covered by safe harbor wording you will find in our published results documents. Please note, our presentations contain forward-looking statements that reflect management's current views with respect to future events. Such statements are subject to many risks and uncertainties. If the assumptions underlying any of these statements prove incorrect, then actual results may be materially different from those expressed or implied by such statements. Forward-looking statements speak only to the date on which they are made. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that all participants are in listener status and that the conference has been recorded.
If you would like to ask questions, please press the star and one keys on your touchtone telephone. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star and two on your telephone. If you require the assistance of an operator during the Q&A session, press star and zero on your telephone. We will now start with the question-and-answer round. I would like to hand over to Christian Herrmann.
Thank you very much for that explanation. Ladies and gentlemen, you may ask your questions now. Please introduce yourself with your name and the name of the organization that you are representing, and as always, please ask your questions in English, and as a matter of fairness to all others, please limit the number of questions to a maximum of two. So we get started, and the first question goes to Klas Bergelind from Citi.
Thank you. Hi, Martin and Claus, Klas at Citi. So my first question I had was on the embedded market share gains in the full year guide. Trucks North America down only slightly versus market down 10% at the midpoint. I guess that's Western Star. But Mercedes-Benz is down 6% versus market down 18% midpoint, for Europe. You obviously have Brazil recovering, but in light of the weak orders for Mercedes-Benz now in the fourth quarter, and with your market share in Europe going backwards by 3 percentage points, Martin, I'm trying to understand a bit how we should think about your outperformance from here for Mercedes-Benz. Thank you.
Claus, I'm not sure I got all the problems. The market share of North America in 2023 was certainly impacted by that supply supplier issues we had in the fourth quarter. Otherwise, I'm pretty confident we would have been above the 40%. Therefore, going forward, the more than 40% guidance that we give is, in my opinion, very well achievable, and the production and the order intake, in my opinion, is pointing in that direction. On the European side, we'll have to see in the development that in 2022, another competitor had significant problems with his output due to supplier issues, which then normalized in 2023. So for me, this is rather a technical reaction.
I see our development in Europe, in the next year, going alongside the market in plus, minus, something is always happening. There are always some tweaks and bumps and, on the other side, headwinds, which then can give you, but more or less going together with the market.
Yeah, so I totally know Mercedes-Benz. I mean, I can understand that North America, you're pushing on Western Star, but speaking of Mercedes-Benz, your unit sales are down 6%, market Europe, 18% down at the midpoint, which is just a quite strong recovery in Brazil, embedded into your guidance. Is that how we should look at it, or... Yeah, that's my question, really.
I mean, if you look backwards to the 2023 number, there is always a slight difference between sale and market share. Market share is retail registered, while sales, it, when it leaves, our facilities and goes to our, sales partners. So there, there could be something out of that. Then certainly you have, you are fully right, you have the Brazil issue. Brazil, in 2024, will be stronger, so I could see here something regard the European market, but on the other side, with Brazil being a significant, business for the Mercedes truck, so that is, the mix.
But basically-
My second-
... in Europe, it's a development together with the market in Europe, what we expect.
Yeah. Thank you. My, my second question I had was on the inclined ASP. I mean, your unit sales guide at 500,000 midpoint, I think makes sense, but ASP is well ahead of expectations out there.... Obviously, you will have Brazil recovering against Europe falling, that's negative from mix. So this must really be the aftermarket side and also very solid price realization. If I look at pricing, I think Claus said out of the EUR 3.8 billion of volume and price mix on slide 12, by far was the positive pricing, which is pretty material. So can I ask you, Martin, what is the carryover on pricing here for the first half? And what do you think you can do on pricing for your orders here in the beginning of the year? Thank you.
First of all, pricing, pricing was last year, mainly due to the inflation we had in all areas, starting with wages, continuing with, logistics and energy costs, and ending with material costs. So a lot of the pricing was inflationary, and sometimes even catch up we have to do to previous years. So that part is definitely carrying on. What we never did last year, especially not in North America, was what I call the opportunistic pricing, that we misused a strong market to pump up, prices for the last, 10,000 trucks we still had open slots for. Because we are very much focused on long-term contracts, long-term relationship with customers, and we see that paying off in 2024. So I don't see...
There is not so much room for further price increase, but carrying on, the 2023 level is, is, I would say, realistic. However, I would say every sale is a free decision, and that's the fun of the business. So it's negotiation, but it's ultimately, for me, the strength of the product, the strength of the service network, the reliability of the product. And, and we see it in one product where we really, invested at the right time, that is on the bus coach side, where we invested in a complete new, coach bus, Setra, for Europe in the midst of the crisis.
It's now paying off because now bus is back, and we have the best product out in the market, and that product can then carry the price, and the customer is still absolutely happy going with our product. Claus?
Quick, quick final one. Promise to be quick. On, on the fixed cost, reduction, -6% versus 15% target, I think you were -8% last year. You're guiding for a very solid margin in Mercedes-Benz . Is this what you see, Martin, going into the second half, that you can sort of run a bit harder there on the fixed cost side? Because the margin was certainly better than I thought for you, you know, looking at your guide. Thank you.
I mean, the fixed cost is a huge bucket of all different impacts. I would say the biggest one, especially if I compare 2022 with 2023, was the increased spending we had on IT. We have the duty to separate here completely from our old sister company, Mercedes, and we decided deliberately, if we do it, we do it right and go for a new system and not just copy old systems. And that costs, and especially in this area, we have significantly cost and price increases as well. That's cost more than we initially thought. Certainly, higher investments, higher efforts in R&D, cost us as well.
But fixed cost is a continued important task, and it's one of the tasks that we are not yet done and sufficient because we need that resilience for the years ahead of us.
Thank you.
Thank you, Klas. The next question goes to Daniela Costa from Goldman.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions as well. I have two. The first one is regarding sort of the, the CARB regulations that are being introduced now in California, and next year, I understand they're setting another 4 or 5 states, final deadline 2027. Can you help us think about whether do you, when do you start to see these and how significant it could be, as a contributor, especially for your 2025, vision? And then the second question, obviously, sort of like Mercedes last week, was quite outspoken about, their intentions for, for the Daimler, stake. You have a buyback, increased dividend, and but still a lot of, very cash generative and a lot of cash in the balance sheet left.
Can you remind us, like from here, how should we think about capital allocation for the medium term? Thank you.
Daniela, thanks for your questions. I would say we are well prepared for the 2027 CO2 regulation, as well as of everything from CARB. That certainly brings more technology in the truck, makes the truck more expensive. So we might see in 2025 and 2026 a pull-forward impact. It's strange sitting here and worrying about 2027 or 2026, we have a great position, we have great products. We are prepared for any regulation. So I am absolutely confident that we will master any reaction of the markets to that, and certainly, if we see in 2025 and 2026 a pull forward effect, that we'll take it and go from there. But the bigger question is for me, how will the U.S. economy continue?
Will be 2025, 2026, another strong year like, the US economy is one of the strongest economy we have worldwide in 2023 and in 2024. And I have no clue how the year the politics develop then, after the elections, so we'll have to see. But I feel ourselves very well prepared for any scenario. I can't talk at all about Mercedes. You have to ask this question in their call. On the buyback of our side and the cash generation, yes, we are far from done with our share buyback program. Potentially, Claus, you can give the details where we are today. We definitely go through that program. We have a clear allocation. We increased our dividend in 2024 for 2023. We will continue to generate cash.
We will be a strong company, but that is what we always said. Daimler Truck is an absolutely cool company, and we continue with that. And once we are through with the one program Claus is talking about, we will definitely have. We have to invest, and we want our shareholders to participate, and with both things, I think we have enough funds to satisfy both needs. Claus, back over to you.
Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Martin. Daniela, thanks for your question. I mean, very clear, I mean, we are very cash-rich company at this point in time with a high cash generation. We talk about cash conversion rate of 0.8, 0.9 as well for the future. That means we will sit on quite some cash. What we have therefore announced at the last Capital Market Day already last summer is that we like to get a little bit more flexible when it comes to dividend. We opened up the range we want to distribute to the shareholders from 40%-60%.
The 60, or the opening up towards the 60, honestly, is more meant to basically keep dividends stable as well when our results might not going up or not as good as we would wish, in order to keep the dividend stable, so we would take a little bit more out of the net income. The other thing is, that we have actually started already a quite aggressive, from our point of view, share buyback program for such a young company. I think we announced on a valuation of EUR 25 billion, I have to admit, last summer, to buy back EUR 2 billion within 2 years, which is 8% of the capital, which is really, from our point of view, a lot.
From today's perspective, I mean, we do not look at this share buyback program as a one-off. First of all, we go through the current one, and I said EUR 2 billion in two years. We have split that into EUR 1 billion in one year and another stage, another EUR 1 billion in the second year, which might then end in the summer 2025. And currently, we are in the middle of the first stage, and I have bought back, in the meantime, roughly EUR 600 million. Basically, we are six- a little bit more than half of the first tranche or a quarter of the entire program.
Thank you for the call.
Thanks, Daniela, and the next question goes to Nicolai Kempf from Deutsche. Nicolai?
Yeah, good morning. Nicolai Kempf here from Deutsche Bank. First of all, congrats to a very strong 2023. Two question from my side, and I'll also take them one by one. First of all, on, on the guidance, just looks very ambitious, and can you walk us through the different building blocks here? I mean, volume, probably slightly down, pricing, a bit of tailwind, input costs, how should we think about that?
I mean, first of all, Nicolai, thanks, for your, your assessment of our results. Yes, we are proud of it, but we are not by far not done, and therefore, that is our reflection. We, of our 2024 guidance as well. If you say it looks ambitious, that was when someone told us in 2020, when we had our first... or '21, when we had our first, pre-spin off Capital Market Day. They told us we are ambitious. Yes, we are ambitious. We were ambitious, we are ambitious, and we, we continue to be ambitious. If you look at our Capital Market Day last year in Boston announcements, we said we want to grow, the company further. It will be more difficult in 2024 than in 2023, without doubt, but we are not afraid of. We will lose volume.
That is clear, and that is resilience means we show that we can come up with the same results in a more with more headwinds than in 2023, and that is all reflected in that steady, with lower volume, same result announcement. But honestly, that is that what we promised you three years ago, that is what we are working hard to get there. Now, if I walk you through the building blocks, volume will go down. Pricing, I don't see further tailwinds, but as I have said, we avoided opportunistic pricing in 2023, so I'm confident we can keep it through 2024. The input cost is very difficult to check. If they go down, they will come with a kind of a delay into our PNL.
We will have further cost pressures next year as well. So, but we have a lot of areas where we can increase the efficiency of how we do things. So even if the costs go slightly up, the pricing will stay stable, the volume goes down, then the rest has to come out of efficiency or out of great products with high quality and the efficiency of we're working hard on, on the products we have.
Great. Thank you. Just one quick follow-up on the Mercedes fixed cost or the industrial fixed cost target. How could it split between this year and next year to achieve the 15% reduction in fixed cost?
Let me take that one. Nicolai, regarding the fixed costs, we have shown that we actually did not even pause, we fell back, which is not good, was not intention, and we take it very serious from there to get better, and we have earlier today already confirmed a -15 target for 2025. The plan is that we basically halve the gap this year towards that target of 15. Basically, when you halve the gap from -6, it's a 10-ish, -10-ish, which the planning is saying at this point in time, and this is what we are going for.
Understood. Thank you.
The next in line is Miguel Borrega from BNP. Miguel.
Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one on Mercedes-Benz, and, maybe a follow-up to what you just said, Martin, about keeping prices stable. So I just wanted to challenge that assumption a little bit. What is different, this time, and what sustains that price-cost spread? You already mentioned the European market is gonna be weaker, there's a negative mix effect from Brazil, and raw materials, namely steel prices, are down. So why wouldn't your customers demand lower prices?
First of all, every customer wants lower prices, every supplier wants higher prices, and this is what it's called negotiations, and therefore, we have sales guys, and therefore, we have purchasing guys, and therefore, we always talk about full packages. Don't forget that we will increase our service revenue with good margins further. So it's a full mixed bag, but a lot of the price increases... We won't increase our pricing in 2024. A lot is spillover effects from the last years, and potentially, you know, I have to go back now in history. Remember the first quarter in 2022, where the cost increases hit us a lot, where the cost went up fast, much faster than we could bring up the pricing.
Now, we benefit from the other side, we have a backlog in some areas, very strong backlogs. So, we can then work off that backlog, and we know the pricing is there. And in the new truck businesses, as I said, no more increases, but on the other side, good products that provide the customer a high value and therefore can command the respective price.
Very good. And then, on the fixed cost reduction, what is there left to deliver? You basically have two years to deliver an additional 8% fixed cost reduction. Is this evenly split or a little bit more back-end loaded? And I know this is a sensitive topic, Martin, but you had an ambitious target to reduce headcount since the IPO, but numbers have been relatively flat. Can you maybe share some color there, please?
I mean, this is by far the most positive—the most difficult one, task ahead. As we said, we have to work—we have to continue to work on it, despite a lot of demands and despite a clear path for growth. How that works altogether is something we have to figure out, but one thing is absolutely where we are, where we are not going backwards. Number one, we will and have to keep our profit targets even in more tougher environments, and you mentioned it yourself in your first question, yeah? We have to show, and we want to show, and we will show you that 2024, we can have that resilience, which in the past was sometimes not necessarily our key trait, and fixed cost plays a big role into that.
Secondly, we will do everything to keep this ambitious growth target we have for the second half of the decade, built of a solid profit foundation. And for that, we have to be more nimble, especially when it comes to SG&A or what we do on our production sites in the future, and therefore, we work on that. Here, 2024 is a very key year to balance the headwinds, the targets of resiliency, and on the other side, the preparation for future growth, and bring that into a mix that does not harm the profits at all. This is the most difficult task, and this is where all our team's working diligently on.
This is certainly a topic we will talk in the future a lot when we meet again in calls or in Capital Market Days.
Great. And then one quick follow-up to what you just said on Euro 7 regulation. Can you share some color on the additional investments and whether that will change, in any way, your margins? Thank you very much.
No, I mean, Euro 7 was the hot topic of 2023. The initial draft of the law would have required a lot of absolutely unnecessary additional equipment, technology into the truck our customers had to pay for, with very little impact on environment. Ultimately, rationale prevailed. We are able to reduce NOx emissions, nitrogen oxides emissions significantly. So Euro 7 will bring to the environment, to the public, cleaner trucks than already today, very clean trucks, but with no unnecessary, let's say, equipment on the truck. So the necessary testing and development requirements are in our budgets, reflected, always well reflected, so going forward, are reflected. I don't see that Euro 7 will...
Then Euro 7 comes fairly late into the market, so I won't see much break here with Euro 7 because it's an evolutionary going on. If people are really familiar with the matter, we are already at the moment at Euro 6e, so that is not the initial Euro 6 we had about 10 years ago. And Euro 7 is an evolutionary continuation of what we started, so it's not, for me, an inflection point, which brings the market upside down.
Thanks, Miguel, for your question. The next in line is Jose Asumendi from JP Morgan. Jose?
Thank you, Christian. Hi, Martin and Klas, and congrats on the strong results and strong guidance for 2024. Just two follow-ups, two questions, please. On Mercedes-Benz, are there any additional structural measures that you can take within the brand to improve the share of aftermarket and revenues? Or are you largely done with the measures you implemented a couple of years ago, and you have managed to close the gap to your peers? Second, I'm trying to understand a bit better this fixed cost reduction. I guess IT cost reduction is a substantial burden still for Mercedes-Benz brand. So can you comment maybe on either the timing of the IT cost reduction coming down? I guess it's more 2025 than 2024, and maybe the magnitude of the margin impact, that will be great.
Thank you.
I mean, first of all, I mean, the one of the biggest measures, and here we really did all the homeworks, was to turn Brazil completely around. Secondly, was to reestablish the quality of our product. This is a clear check mark. Third is to work on the cost. This is a continuous and ongoing work, where the teams of Mercedes-Benz are really on a track. Does this include, does this include additional structural measures? I would say if the measure is so big that I would call it structural, I definitely wouldn't announce it in an analyst call. And if in everything else, we could call it structural, but I call it more evolutionary going forward.
We have to reduce our cost on the variable side, on, on the efficiencies in the plants, as well as especially on the SG&A field, and we go with that. IT, I would say that is certainly something more under 2025, when we see ultimately, the benefits of it, but this is a longer journey.
Thank you.
Thanks, Jose. The next question goes to Shakeel Kirunda from Morgan Stanley.
Hey, guys, it's Shakeel from Morgan Stanley. Congrats on a great result, and thanks for taking my question. So, I understand the Mercedes-Benz result was driven by strong pricing in Q4, but can you shed some light on what drove the timing of that? You know, why did this become particularly visible in Q4 versus the rest of the year, and how should we think about that going forward?
I mean, Shakeel, first of all, it was not just pricing. As I said, it was Brazil. It was a very strong aftermarket business. Hey, we had a pretty messy production situation for a very long time. Once you clean up here and go back to more normal, normal is good for production, because it allows you more efficiency there. So there were a lot of things that came to fruition in the fourth quarter. And then, I would say I would do it like I said last twelve months ago, I recommended everyone where we had a not so good fourth quarter. I ask everyone to balance off third and fourth quarter for a half year.
And I would say this year, we potentially to avoid a similar situation like last year, we had potentially a little bit more overcautious, when we looked for potential, end of the year, problems or, or bookings, take the second half. This is a very good guidance of the strengths of Mercedes-Benz, not, not just the fourth quarter, which is always good to be on that side and then on the other side. I remember the discussions we had at that, at that table, 12 months ago was a little bit more difficult.
Got it. Thank you very much. And then, you raised an interesting point about not maximizing pricing on an opportunistic basis. Can you shed some light on the ways you expect that to pay off in 2024?
I mean, it definitely pays off in the U.S., where we have a huge portion of our sales goes to large customers, and here we are continuing. It pays off that they don't take now advantage of opportunistic situations this year. So in my opinion, it balances off, but it's the basic is always never use the opportunity, but build your pricing upon the strengths of the product and the value the product brings to the customer. That is the core of how we did it in the last years, which was a key for the success for many, many years, and it will be a strong foundation for the years to come in those market, and it makes us pretty confident for 2024.
Thank you very much. Just my last question: Can you tell us a little bit about the building blocks that go into your 2024 North American market outlook? You know, how much do you factor in a soft landing or infrastructure expenditure from the IRA and the IIJA, or even a pre-buy effect?
I mean, we see a shift in the North American market, and everything I say now is nuances, yeah? So it's not that drop, not that what we would call catastrophic decline or so. The on-highway business is softer. But this is good for us because it frees up capacities, which we haven't had in 2023 on the vocational side. The vocational market, which goes into construction, which goes into utilities, which goes to bodybuilders, was strong and is strong, and now we can participate because we have the production slots. Our factory in Cleveland, North Carolina, that four years ago was 100% on-highway tractors, will be 2024, 100% vocational Western Star trucks.
We are looking where we can add additional capacity potentially to follow that up. Medium-duty is strong. We have a good lineup there, so I would say overall. But as I said, it's nuances where we can now react with our broad product portfolio to the market. We are almost sold out for the first half. We certainly, there's always, and I said that in my speech, there are always macroeconomic outlooks. U.S. economy is going strong. This is a solid country that did a lot of things right in the last couple of years, and its benefit in 2024 about it. How that will develop in the second half, this is one of the uncertainties, and we have to see and deal with it, however what it gets.
Normalization, as I said, in Q3 means you don't have that 12 months outlook, where I could say, "Guys, we are basically sold out, or every slot we have is already dedicated to a customer, so no worries. Volume will come as long as we have supplies." This is not the case. Yeah, almost sold out for first half in North America means it's, we still have to sell a full half year of trucks into an economy we don't know how it develops, and we have to see how it is. But if we will get it from the newspaper, and you'll get it out of the newspaper as well, but the products and the company is there.
Thank you very much, Martin.
Next in line is Jonathan Day from HSBC. Jonathan.
Yeah, good morning. Thanks very much for taking my questions. I've got a couple. I was firstly on the pricing, just wondering, I mean, you talked about not increasing prices in 2024, but you also talked about some pricing spillover effects. And I was just wondering if you could give us a sense of how those have progressed over 2024, those sort of spillover effects? That's my first question.
I would like to talk about that topic further down the road. If I say we are not increasing pricing, then that means for every customer listening who pays a higher price in 2024 to 2023, I now make the job for the sales guy much more difficult. Yeah, pricing is...
Well, people sometimes ask me, "How much costs a truck?" And I answer back: "How much costs a house?" And there are things in the house which gets cheaper over the years, and there are other things when you build something which gets more expensive, and so is pricing. Pricing ahead of time and speculating, we have hundreds of people that's going option pricing, and base model pricing, and pricing for segments, and pricing for markets, and pricing for different countries. Jonathan, just take what I say. We expected, when we say overall stable, that always includes some segments that go up, that includes some segments that go down. That includes for Europe, some markets where we have currency headwinds, and it certainly includes markets where we have currency tailwinds. That is very complex.
You have to take, yeah, our word. We keep it. We see the margins we make on trucks in 2024 stable to 2023, and the rest we have to work hard on to make it happen, and we'll certainly talk about that when we present half and full year results.
Okay, thank you. Second question, just coming back to the U.S. and the vocational market. I was just wondering if you could remind us a bit of the profitability differential on the U.S. vocational trucks versus the on-highway trucks.
It's again, how much costs a house? There are small, what we call baby aid vocational trucks. There are heavy loaded trucks for the oil fields. It's a mixed bag. We have fleet businesses. We have bodybuilder deals. I would say it's the same. It's good markets. We are very well positioned on the on-highway side, and I will say, we are the newcomer on the vocational side, so we will increase our our position there and we'll increase our profitability there. Yeah.
Okay, great. Thank you.
The next question is for Virginia Montosi from Bank of America. Virginia.
Good morning. Just a quick one from me. Can you give us just a little bit more color in terms of the market share that you think for vocational, especially, for 2024, and kind of the, the driver there?
Virginia, sorry. For my entire life, to announce market share gains only energizes competition. That's at least what happens to us. Anytime a competitor goes out and says he wants to take market share away from us in certain areas, especially when it comes to on-highway in the US, it's the best doping for our teams. I don't want to energize our competitors. So we just work hard and then celebrate the successes.
Okay, thank you.
And then we have a question from Stephen Reitman from Société Générale. Stephen.
Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my question, and again, congratulations on the results and the guidance. I'd like to look a little bit at the zero emission field, and obviously you showed a pretty big percentage increase, but on a relatively small number, 3,443 vehicles. I'd like to maybe see your views on the state of the market, really. Do you think some of the hype or the excitement that was pushing the market, you know, this, the zero emissions is following the trend we're seeing in the passenger car market, as well as the realities sink in about TCO and the inability to do the job until the technology is significantly or seemingly improved or prices come down? Thank you.
I mean, Stephen, for me, to ultimately move the entire industry from diesel to zero emission is a historic undertaking, which needs a lot of elements, and I call it always a magic formula, three items: great products from the OEMs, TCO parity, and a working infrastructure. When I came out with the first speech about those threes, about four years ago, I was saying, and at the moment, every single one is zero, and by the way, those three factors are combined like a multiplication. One factor zero, the entire equation is zero. Four years ago, all four are zero. The product from the industry, not just from us, but from our competitors as well, but especially from us, are not any longer zero. As I said in my speech, we have 10 complete product lines out. That's far more than any startup can promise.
They have appointed 1 truck-only prototype, like pre-production level. We have 10 complete product lineups, from the eCanter, which by the way, is the best truck, eTruck money can buy, to the eActros 600 and to our city bus here in Europe. All absolutely fine, highly praised trucks by the trade press, by our customers. Number one, and we have a lot more as prototypes, as test vehicles, as we have shown on the hydrogen side, in our pipeline. This will not be the problem. Then it comes, I go to infrastructure. Infrastructure is the biggest challenge, and therefore, we are on this two-legged strategy because charging can't do the job. Already today, in a lot of markets, the biggest limitation is that our customers can't get the high-power charging we know.
At the moment, we talk, for example, in Europe, only about 300-kilowatt charging, but we have to get to 700 or 1 or 1-megawatt chargers, which are not available yet. So this has to be built, and the clock is ticking because 2030 is the year it has to be. Therefore, we are on hydrogen, on green hydrogen, at a price of about EUR 450 per kilogram. That is not available today. So we work diligently with proven players in that field, whether it be Linde, with whom we opened up a liquid hydrogen filling station in Wörth, or whether with Abu Dhabi, with Mubadala, to look to get the green hydrogen exports coming from the Persian Gulf to Europe at a competitive price.
All that floating in, then comes TCO, and TCO is only solvable, and I think this is the biggest wake up in other industries, that zero emission will be more expensive. It can be TCO better, but then we need a price on diesel and in Germany, and I know that this is a big burden on our customers, we have now a CO2 pricing in the toll when you run trucks on public highways, and I see that other European countries are following that direction. So running diesel trucks will become more expensive, and then the more expensive e-vehicles will then still be TCO positive. I tried now to put an entire evening filling services, a sermon or a multi-day series into five minutes of answer.
I can only recommend. I have multiple podcasts out, Transportation Matters, about that issue, where you can deep dive. I'm fully convinced that by the end of the decade, we'll have a significant higher amount of zero-emission vehicles that we sell to our benefit, that our customers buy to their benefit, and where the entire society is benefiting for significantly reduced CO2 emissions.
Thank you. Will you be able to share with us maybe your best guess of what the absolute volume of your sales might be at any particular times?
If you write me down the price of energy and the availability, the number of megawatt chargers we have in Europe and the United States, the price of energy the customer has to pay at those megawatt chargers, the amount of hydrogen that is landed from the Middle East in Europe or is produced in the United States, and the price of hydrogen. If you write me down those four numbers and really bet your fortune on it that they are right, then I give you an exact number, how much battery and how much fuel cell. The rest is a sliding factor in between, depending on applications, on range of the trucks.
We have to prepare in this uncertain world for a lot of scenarios, and I tell you, we are prepared and in our strategy, and we'll certainly, next Capital Market Day, whenever that is, we will certainly deep dive more on that. But rest assured-
Sounds good
... we spend a lot of brain energy, and we are very flexible for whatever outcome.
Sounds fair enough. Thank you.
Thank you, Stephen. I think we have time for one more question, and that would go to Frank Biller from LBBW.
Yes, hello, thanks for taking my question. There's also one left here. The one is on autonomous driving. I haven't heard anything about autonomous driving within this call. Maybe you can give us an update what's going on in Daimler Truck and here the time progresses.
The reason why you haven't heard anything in the call is because we were focusing on 2023 and 2024. And certainly, autonomous is part of our investment. It's part of our investment in the future; therefore, in the figures you have seen, autonomous is included. We make very good progress on that. It's one of the huge strategic topics and opportunities that can really reshape the industry. I have a feeling we are very well positioned there, and when we have more strategic-oriented meetings, we definitely will talk a lot of autonomous, and you'll see more in 2024.
We had a couple of really good press coverage last year, and we will have more to tell about our progress, and we're progressing very well, with our subsidiary Torc, with our redundant chassis, and most importantly for me, in the collaboration with our large customers in the United States. There will be a lot of exciting news in 2024 as well on that topic.
So nothing changed here from speeding time? It's not-
No
... slowing down like, like, some car companies do right now?
No, it's not, it's not slowing down. It's diligent work. It's a grinding work of getting things done, the hardware going, the sensing going, the software stacks going, and look for all the crazy edge cases, we call it, that can happen out there on the roads, driving truck on the road, simulating different scenarios. Exciting stuff, could talk hours about it, but you'll, you'll, you'll hear more about that during the year.
Okay, thanks a lot, and congrats to the figures, yeah.
Thank you. Thank you. So before we conclude, I would like to say one thing. First of all, I have to say thank you, Claus, for being really a good steward in the last nine months. It was a pleasure working with you together. He will stay with the company, so it's not his farewell, but it's his last time here on the podium. But we all know why Claus had to step in, despite his job as a treasurer, is because of Jochen Goetz passing away in the mid of 2023. And I tell you really, it still touches me at that moment.
I would have loved to give these numbers, extraordinary numbers, out together with Jochen because he was working for that more than 8% return on sales, for that more than EUR 4 billion in EBIT, as hard, as emotional, as energized as I did, and it's a shame that I'm alone here. Sorry. I want to dedicate that year to Jochen as well.
Martin, thank you. Thank you very much for taking the time. Thank you for the great words at the end as well. That's the end of the Q&A sessions, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for participating. Thanks for joining us today. As always, Investor Relations remains at your disposal afterwards, throughout the day, and also the next weeks. For the ones who want to follow the media Q&A, this will start in a couple of minutes. To all of you, have a great day. Take care, and thank you. We look forward to talking to you soon. Thanks.