Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to our Capital Market Day: Mastering Transformation. We will kick today off with our annual results conference for 2024. We're very happy to have you here with us today, and I would like to introduce myself. I am Christina Schenck. I'm the Head of Investor Relations and Treasury.
Good morning, everybody. My name is Willem Spelten. I'm heading Corporate Communications. Also, a warm welcome from my side. We start today with the annual results conference for the approximately first 30 minutes, followed by the Capital Market Day: Mastering Transformation, providing a comprehensive update on where we are standing and where we are intending to go for analysts, for investors, and for the media.
In total, our presentations will last for roughly two hours. You can follow our stream with simultaneous translation into Chinese and German. For those of you in the room, you can access the translation function as well: Channel 1 for German, Channel 2 for English, and Channel 3 for Chinese.
And both Q&A sessions after the CMD will be broadcasted on our website, so you can also join digitally. The event ends around noon today. We will now start with the annual results conference hosted by our CEO, Ola Källenius, followed by our CFO, Harald Wilhelm.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and hello to everybody that is watching this Annual Results Conference and Capital Markets Day on the stream. And again, welcome. We would like to start by sharing the numbers of 2024, but then spend more time today talking about the future of this company, what's happening in the industry, and what is Mercedes-Benz doing to propel itself into a prosperous future. That is what today is all about. But let's start and look at the numbers for 2024.
Everybody knows that 2024 was another exciting year in the auto industry, but a year that was also defined by macro challenges and also a tough market condition. How have we fared during this year? In the market conditions that we encountered, especially in China in the second half of last year, yes, it did affect our revenues and accordingly also our profitability, but in that context, to be able also in the competitive set to print a EUR 9.2 billion free cash flow is a very strong statement of a company that has a solid foundation, and in spite of the fact that we returned back to shareholders almost or around EUR 10 billion through the dividend, but also through share buybacks, the net industrial liquidity of the company still sits at around EUR 35 billion.
So the foundation and the balance sheet of this company is very strong, which we think is an advantage as we tackle the next few years where the market conditions probably also will see its challenges. What was going on at Mercedes-Benz Cars? Well, at Mercedes-Benz Cars, for those of you who joined us yesterday, you got a little special presentation on the G-Class. It's one of those unique icons in our portfolio. And surely that was one of the big events in 2024, launching the all-new G and also the insanely performant electric G that many customers are also now turning to. The perfect car for adventure now at zero emission. But 2024 was also a year where we have laid the foundation for what we're going to talk about in the update into the future. Markus Schäfer, our Head of R&D, is here today.
His team, but also all the teams in R&D, in production, and marketing and sales, they're readying themselves for what is going to be the biggest tech and product launch offensive in the history of this company. So whereas maybe we didn't have so many launches in 2024, that didn't mean it was a slow year. It was probably one of the busiest years that we have ever had, and we're ready and poised to go. If you take a little bit closer look at the structure of the sales, as I mentioned, we and others encountered a Chinese market with subdued consumer sentiment. And yes, that also affected some of the upper ends of the segments. Whereas we have in a successful way protected our market share and in many cases actually increased our market share, this is something that we had to deal with in 2024.
And we're looking at how does this develop in 2025 and how do we make sure that our very strong position on the top end, that we can protect it and also in the next few years build upon it. On the xEV side, if you double-click on xEVs and BEVs and you do an analysis of the premium luxury market or what's going on, you quickly see that in the segments where we have the most of our first-generation electric vehicles, which is E-Class and S-Class segments, sedans and SUVs alike, in most markets, Mercedes-Benz is the EV leader in those segments. And this is in spite of the fact with all the market pressure and many market participants resorting to price action. You're not completely immune to that. We try to be a little bit more careful.
The biggest segment in the EV side for premium and luxury is GLC and C-Class segment. There we have no offering in our portfolio today, but when we meet here next year, we're ready to go. Those products are in the pipeline and they're coming in 2026. So in a thoughtful way, we managed through this period. You can see that the plug-in hybrids have been quite successful. I don't think there's any company in our competitive set that has a better lineup for plug-in hybrids. Most of our offering is WLTP 100 km and above. Very few companies have that. And we can see a renaissance of the plug-in hybrids.
And in this day and age where I think it's clear that the transformation into electric mobility is going to take a little bit longer than maybe most people thought five years ago, and it's going to be heterogeneous, to have that card as well to play is good. That's a strong hand. The van division, the van division had another banner year. The profitability was again unusually high. When Mathias Geisen , who has now moved into Marketing and Sales, presented the van strategy a couple of years ago, he said, "A light commercial van company based in Europe that can print a double-digit margin at all is a phenomenal result." And here again, they have done it north of that. What is it? It's the strength of the portfolio. It's the strength of the products, good structure, disciplined go-to-market strategy, and also good on pricing.
That doesn't mean that you can sit back. The van division is going through, similar to the passenger cars, maybe even more in relative terms, a very big change. You know that the cycles of Vans are longer, and we have started also here the biggest investment and product offensive in many decades, and we will launch the first product of the so-called VAN.EA architecture next year and then following products the years after that. There is vigilance about cost as we are on the passenger car side. If you're making more money, you cannot kind of relax and become a little bit loose. You have to have the same discipline. One example of that, we're announcing that we are again adapting our production network. We're selling our plant in Argentina to improve the utilization of that plant to an investor group.
So they will act as a contract manufacturer to us, but can use unutilized capacity in that plant for other things. So again, improving our fixed cost position for the van division. Strong profitability, but not a reason to sit back and relax. Also, the van market could see that the market was normalizing somewhat, and there was also market pressure on Vans, which affected our overall sales. But as I mentioned, with a very, very good structure, we are kind of in Europe the premium van of choice. We have a strong business in the United States, and we have a niche business in China that we think with the next VAN.EA architecture, we can grow further. That leads me to Mercedes-Benz Mobility.
For those of you who have covered financial services company, you know in the interest cycles, you're at the back end, you're at the front end, and so on, that it is affected by interest rates and there is a lag there. I think a very important thing for the financial services business is what does your new business margin look like when you acquire new business? Is it healthy or is it under pressure? So even if the actual results in 2024 was not one of the best years of our Mercedes-Benz Mobility division, that new acquisition profitability is looking healthy. So I think we're preparing ourselves for a cycle there, depending of course on how interest rates develop and if inflation stays down or maybe comes down even more.
I also want to give some kudos to the mobility team because not only are they kind of the wing person of marketing and sales facing the customers, they're doing other enabling things, and one of those projects is Charging Solutions. What was a PowerPoint presentation and an idea a couple of years ago is now starting to become reality. Through participation in consortiums and through our own activities, we are now building a Mercedes-Benz charging network, high-power charging network. It will be fantastic for this car that is next to me here around the world. I've already visited some of those both here in Europe and in the United States. It kind of really feels good when you are a Mercedes driver and you hook up and it's just plug in, it's very quick and you go. The message for that activity is clear.
Going into the future with the electric offensive that's coming, the message to these customers is we've got your back. If you get a car from Mercedes, you're going to get the convenience with it. And w ith that, I will hand over to Harald, who will drill down on the financial numbers. Thank you.
Yeah, hello everybody. Was it from my side? Very happy now to dig a bit deeper into the numbers, obviously. And I would say let's get started with cars, right? So we heard on sales before, revenue evolution, I mean, is in line with the sales. And given the circumstances Ola pointed out, we printed EUR 8.7 billion of EBIT on the car side and the number slightly higher than that on the cash flow before interest and tax. How did we get there? Let's have a look at that in the bridge.
But before digging into the bridge, obviously, I think a word on the fourth quarter, where did we end up on the fourth quarter? Also at 8.1% on the full year. So ahead of the 6%-7%, which we predicted at the end of the third quarter. And that was thanks to a better volume, definitely a strong mix in the fourth quarter and also more cost efficiencies, which we could pull through already in the fourth quarter, which I think is encouraging if we think about mid-2025. But back to the full year and the full year bridge, obviously. So what happened in 2024? Well, very obvious on the chart, the bucket volume structure and net pricing is negative. Inside, I mean, you have net pricing being negative. You have the lower volume. You have a bit of a worse mix in 2024.
We also stepped up the effort to enhance product content. What we call life cycle measures, measures which had a headwind for 2024. As well, at the same time as we guided for, the used car business came in significantly lower than 2023. We also recorded towards the tail end residual value adjustments in the bucket of volume structure net pricing here, as you can see. On the FX side, we see chiefly the impact of the Turkish lira. What happened, however, on the industrial performance side, and I think if you look at that, that also is encouraging if we think about 2025. Basically it's a billion of an improvement. If you bear in mind that within that, we had to swallow headwinds from one-time supplier cost, I mean, chiefly due to the capacity adjustments we have been talking about since quite a while.
You can see that the underlying improvement is even higher than EUR 1 billion in 2024, coming from manufacturing, coming from material cost efficiencies, as well as raw material and tailwinds, which we could cash in. And talking about efficiencies, I would say also you could see efficiency at work in the R&D metrics, right? So really, I mean, trying to work hard on the products, but also on the efficiency of the engineering organization. That's what you see basically here in the bridge. Leaves me with the other bucket. What happened, I mean, over there, lower BBAC at equity result, including the China dealer support we had been talking about, I mean, in the third and the fourth quarter. Some lower valuations, valuation adjustments, impairments, which sit inside, and the absence of prior year positive impacts, which favored 2023, which were no repeat in 2024.
A word on the adjustments. The diesel ones, I think, are well known from the first quarter already. The new one is EUR 350 million adjustment on top on ACC, and that is related to the adjustment in terms of the adjusted industrial ramp-up side at ACC, which factored in at EUR 350 million outside the underlying in the reported on the right-hand side of the chart. How did we translate that into cash? So at a rate of one or even, yeah, at a rate of one, let's say EUR 9 billion, how did we get there? I would say overall working capital, I mean, pretty well managed, inventory down. So definitely a tailwind here on the cash side, on the inventory. Trade payables were also down, offsetting that, I mean, more than offsetting that. You see that on the numbers, I mean, on the chart.
Net investments running ahead of PPE now, but obviously in support of the product portfolio firework we are preparing. Also here on the others, I mean, the usual one, the reversal of the equity and the divvy for BBAC. Obviously, you see the non-cash elements from valuation impairments, as well as the dealer provisions, which have been recorded, but not cashed out yet in quarter four. What else? Let's move to the indicators on change on cars. I think these KPIs we're looking at on a regular basis to track whether we are in line with the strategy execution. Judge yourself, please. I would say despite the challenges we could see in 2024, the ASP is up by almost 40% between 2019 and 2024. We ended in the fourth quarter, the ASP at EUR 72,000, which I think is a good number.
Look at the workforce reduction, 11%, 15,000 people. There are 10,000, I mean, white collar, which we reduced since 2019. And that is obviously a key supporter to the fixed cost achievement of 19% compared to 2019. And I would like to emphasize this is net of inflation. So if you bear in mind the inflation numbers in Europe and in the world, I think that's quite a sizable number. On the investment side, you also see the discipline at work. All in all, 8% down compared to 2019, with a strong emphasis on the R&D side to support the product portfolio development, but a very stringent and disciplined approach on the CapEx and the PPE side. But we'll talk about that a bit more in depth later when we come to the CMD part of the session. Now, look at the Vans. Ola commented on the sales side already.
I would like to emphasize, however, I mean, look on the revenue side, which suffered less. I mean, how was that possible? Mix at work, disciplined pricing, but mix favorable mix at work, and that is also a key reason why you see very solid print on EBIT and cash flow for the van division in 2024. Let's go to the bridge here as well. So how did we move throughout the year? Ending at a very strong 14.6% return on sales. The volume structure pricing bucket is slightly negative. So the volume loss has been quite nicely compensated by a better mix in 2024, thanks to V-Class and other portfolio evolution. As you know, we stepped out also on the Metris in the U.S., and the pricing was actually pretty stable in 2024. Looking on the industrial performance, so this is slightly negative.
Some product-related cost and inflation headwinds, which we suffered here. On the others, that is related to model change over at BBAC. I would leave that here for the Vans and jump to, on the EBIT side, and jump to the cash side. Strong translation of the EBIT into cash at a rate of one, working capital actually balanced, well-managed. The investments running ahead of depreciation, not a surprise, as we invest into the ramp-up of the van platform on the EV as well on the ICE side. Looking at the indicators of change on Vans, well, also a pretty decent ASP step up by 40%. Active workforce reduction, also at work, 10% down. Fixed cost, also 19% down, again, net of inflation. On the investment side, obviously up in support of the VAN.EA.
I would say strategy execution, if you judge it from the numbers, well on track on the Van side. Looking at the mobility, new business slightly down in line with the market evolution. Tough competition in China here. A bit of FX effect on the portfolio side, but roughly same order of magnitude. EBIT impacted, as Ola pointed out already before. What is the reason? If we look into the bridge, it's pretty obvious here that the interest margin is a function of the past interest rate developments, I mean, suffered. That is the majority of the impact you see here on the slide. A bit of residuals also impacting here on the fleet side. We had the impact on the cost of credit provision in the H1, chiefly coming from the U.S., which stabilized, I mean, in the second half of the year.
What else to say? You also hear, you see efficiencies at work, I mean, to compensate, to mitigate the impact from the margin side. And also we stepped up the effort on the charging infrastructure, which impacted, I mean, the number by roughly, I mean, 1% return on sales in 2024. So without it, it would have been a bit closer to 10%. Now, looking at the group side, we talked to Vans and cars and mobility. So I would just say the recon pretty balanced. So central function has been basically outweighed by positive contribution from the Daimler Truck side. With that, I mean, we are at, including the adjustments I talked about before, we are at a group EBIT reported at EUR 13.6 billion. That translates after an effective tax rate of 26% into a net income of EUR 10 billion, EUR 10.4 to be precise.
And you can see the EPS of EUR 10, which obviously has been favored, supported by the accretion effect from the share buyback. So looking on the cash evolution in 2024 at the group level, again, business side we explained, leaves me with the income tax EUR 3.9 billion, obviously down in line with the underlying results. Interest rate, I mean, is positive. And then in the others, you have the divvy contribution from trucks throughout the year. And yeah, I think in these circumstances of where we had been in 2024, EUR 9.2 billion is a solid number in terms of free cash flow. On the NIL side, well, you see the cash flow at work was EUR 9 billion, as explained before. You see the shareholder returns, EUR 5.5 billion of divvy. We completed both programs of the share buyback, the four plus three programs, EUR 7 billion.
That means EUR 10 billion had been returned to shareholders, to you, in 2024. We also got some divvy and capital return from mobility. That makes a closing net cash position of EUR 31 billion compared to an opening of EUR 31 billion. I would say this capital allocation framework was pretty much at work. Wouldn't you agree with me? Let's come to the outlook. The assumption chart, I spare you that. However, I would like to emphasize, I mean, one point. The outlook is based on the current, today's regulatory framework. What does it mean? Any additional tariffs over and above, which do exist today, are not included, I mean, in this guidance. However, I'd like to give you a bit of a sensitivity if the tariffs for exports from the E.U. into the U.S. would step up from the current 2.5%, say, to 10%.
What would be the impact on a gross basis on the margin for cars? I would say up to 100 basis points in terms of gross impact coming from that. However, before any mitigation, when does it come? How many vehicles do you have in country? How do you react to it? That's why it is utterly difficult to give any number on that one. That's why we guide before any incremental impact, which could be possible in this respect. A word on the measures which have been taken in China for the imports from the U.S. to China, which impacts obviously vehicles with engine size bigger than 2.5 L displacement. So that is a very limited impact. The reason is we already have quite a lot of vehicles, I mean, in country. Therefore, the base to which applies is more limited.
So now let's dig a bit into the division guidance for the cars. Where do we see the sales evolution in 2025? We take a prudent and a cautious view here, I would say. We look at the various markets. We look in particular, I mean, at China. We see a very competitive environment continuing in China in 2025, and that's why we assume some further impact. Whereas in Europe, we see rather a stable sales situation for 2025. Overall, in the U.S., we see a very solid underlying customer demand momentum, maybe in terms of the group sales. However, the number might be slightly lower in 2025 than in 2024. That means all in all, I mean, we see the sales for 2025 at slightly lower than 2024. What does it mean for the margin side? Sorry, first jumped over the xEV share.
So we expect that to step up, as Ola pointed out before. Very strong plug-in portfolio at work where we see good momentum. Obviously, this beautiful vehicle, I mean, will come to market, but the impact in 2025 and taking the share higher is still, I mean, more remote. That is something you will rather see that in 2026 moving forward. Now coming to the margin on cars. So we expect, I mean, the margin on cars to be between 6% and 8% return on sales adjusted, again, before the tariffs I explained before. How do we get there from the 8%, the 8.1% in 2024? The volume is slightly lower, as I just explained before. We see the mix slightly favorable with all of the beautiful products which came and will come to market. We see the pricing stable. This is our target.
This is our ambition that we hold and defend and stay disciplined, I mean, on the pricing side. Now, the one billion question, CO2 in Europe, I would say that one billion question turns out to be a low three-digit number for 2025. So I think all of the concerns you had, at least I think for 2025, we can calm you down on that one, and so then actually you would wonder what is really changing the needle, as everything I said before, more or less is a wash. So, I mean, you're left with a lower contribution given the volume I mentioned on the, from the BBAC side, the contribution from BBAC in 2025 is expected to be lower. We do anticipate some FX headwinds for 2025, and what is in our hands to mitigate that, to stabilize, I mean, the margin, performance, performance, performance.
That means that we take a hard approach on material, on production, on fixed cost to mitigate the impacts, I mean, I said before. With this, all in all, if you make the math, I think you come from an 8% to a bucket of 6%-8% for 2025. What do we expect for the first quarter? Maybe a word on this at this stage. We see the volume for the first quarter for cars at about the level of quarter one 2024. We see the result, the margin for the first quarter also within the guidance bracket, i.e., the 6%-8% for the first quarter. What else on the KPIs here? The CapEx side, we see a significant increase.
That is to prepare and support the product launches, I mean, to come 2025, but then 2026 up to 2027, whereas the R&D side is expected, I mean, to be flattish, and with all of that, I mean, we believe we can basically convert the margin into cash at the rate of 0.9%-1% to 1%. On the Van side, we see the market being intense, so with a lot of, I mean, competition here, we want to stay disciplined, i.e., value over volume. That's why we also see the volume slightly down here on the Van side. We'll step up the xEV share with the Sprinter, the new eSprinter, and what does it mean for the margin, so we see that at the 10%-12% for 2025. How do we get there? Lower volume, as I just said, then pricing and the mix solid, stable.
Here, the headwind from CO2 in Europe has a more meaningful impact. The number in absolute is higher on the Vans for Europe than it is on the cars. And therefore, obviously, on the percentage basis, given a smaller business, it has a more material impact. Probably one of the most important levers or impacts on the margin walk from 14% to 10% to 12% between 2024 and 2025 is coming from the CO2 in Europe. At the same time, we are ramping up the effort and the prep work for the VAN.EA or Van Architecture and the investments into our Eastern Europe Jawor facility. With all of that, before tariffs, a 10%-12% on the Vans. Now, on the Q1, we see that in terms of the margin, also in the same ballpark as the fourth quarter.
R&D and PPE is expected, I mean, to increase significantly to prepare for VAN.EA and the Jawor. Mobility, we expect the return on equity to be between 8% and 9%. What do we see here? Basically, we see some tailwinds in markets outside of China. However, pretty tough competition continuing in China. So that's, I mean, basically how that balances out. Then we continue the investments. We step up the investments into charging in 2025, whereas, I mean, the cost of credit risk are expected to be rather flattish. That brings you to 8% or 9% all together. Also the Q1 is expected to be in that corridor. It leaves me with a group guidance. So on the assumptions of the division, obviously, no surprise that the group revenue is expected to be slightly below in 2025.
The group EBIT, as well as, I mean, the cash flow is expected to be significantly below on the assumptions I just outlined on the Division side before. If you then factor on the cash flow, in the matter of fact that the cash conversion on the Van side is lower due to the ramp up of the investments on the Van side, I think you explain the guidance for the cash flow at the group level. And I think with this, I hand back to Christina and Willem. Thank you.
So thank you very much, Ola. Thank you very much, Harald, for providing us with the review on the 2024 numbers. We will now shift from 2024 to the future of Mercedes-Benz. Willem.
Yeah, so we're now shifting to the Capital Market Day part of the day.
And this roadmap to the future for the future and how we're going to master the transformation of Mercedes-Benz at Mercedes-Benz will be presented again by Ola and Harald, as well as our CTO, Markus Schäfer. All three of them will give you deep insights into our upcoming product firework, into technological innovations made by Mercedes-Benz, as well as how we strengthen the resilience of our company. And we start with our CEO, with Ola, after a short video.
Thank you, Christina. Thank you, Willem. Now, let's shift our focus looking into the future. What is our game plan? What have we been working on? What's the progress that we have made? And what can you expect from Mercedes-Benz in these next coming years? That's what I would like to talk to you today about together with Harald and Markus. And it comes down really to four core messages.
These are the takeaways from today. Number one, we have this unique and iconic brand. It's a certain recipe that makes a Mercedes-Benz a Mercedes-Benz, and in this next phase of our transformation and evolution into the future, what we have done is we have taken this recipe and we have distilled it one more time to make Mercedes even more Mercedes. That's a segue into the second point. We're embarking on the biggest tech innovation and product launch offensive in the company's history, so it will be a very busy three years coming with a refined recipe turning into product and turning into technology, class-leading technology. Even if we love cars and it's a lot about cars, we spend a lot of time here in Sindelfingen, and we look at styling and we test drive and so on.
Everybody in this room, and especially the audience that is in this room, knows you cannot have innovation strength if you don't have financial strength. So financial strength equals innovation strength. Financial strength equals return of capital to shareholders. That is why we will leave no stone unturned in the challenging macro and market environment that we're in to look at our complete business model and every single cost category, investment category to make sure that we have the most efficient operations that we can have. Not the easy way out. Just cut your R&D spend and your CapEx spend. You can very, very, very quickly improve your short-term financial performance if you would do that. But Mercedes-Benz has always been a long-term thinking company. So we're not going to eat our seed. We're going to use our seed to create future exciting products and returns to our investors.
But at the same time, we will double down on efficiency. That is the third message I want you to take with you today. And last but not least, this is a Capital Markets Day. We're talking to our investors. Many of our investors are here. We want to make sure that you have a good return on investment. Harald showed us the numbers from 2024, a healthy dividend, also a good share buyback program. We want to continue our capital allocation policy to be investor-friendly. I could almost stop the day there and say, that's it. Let's now go out on the test track and drive some cars. And I know for those of you who are in the room, you're ready for that and you will get to that. But let's double-click and go in a little bit more deep. But those are the four messages.
Let's start with the recipe. If you work at Mercedes-Benz or you have been associated with Mercedes-Benz for a longer period of time, that recipe is like in your genes. If you work in R&D, you know what a Mercedes is. But sometimes it is important to stand back and look at what are the ingredients and how do you need to maybe refine those ingredients so you either meet or exceed the expectations of your customers. It's about them. What did they get? What do they buy when they buy the three-pointed star? And how are we going to make that experience even better and that technological substance even deeper? Yes, if you would wake me at 3:00 A.M. and say, what is this? Yes, of course, it's class-leading safety. It's the way it rides and drives that comfort.
Even if you're blindfolded, you know you're in a Mercedes. Of course, the quality, the longevity of the product, it's something that you buy to keep. Yeah, I think residual values on our classic cars are among the highest in the world. So we have many of those icons. When we talk about intelligence, it's not tech for the sake of tech. It's tech for the sake of you. We invented the assistance systems to make you more safe. Now it's about safety and convenience. We don't put a big screen into the cars just because it's a flashy screen. We're thinking about what's in it for you. What can you do with that? Is it entertainment? Is it actually working in the car? What is it? And a timeless, timeless elegance. A design carrying Mercedes-Benz into the future. Design doesn't stand still. There is a zeitgeist to modern luxury.
You have to keep on reinventing it. And we will show you that today. For those of you who are part of the program, kind of the final event today will be a sneak preview of upcoming models in 2026 and 2027. I mentioned safety. Some people might not think about this when they purchase the car because they purchase the car with the eyes. Oh, it looks beautiful. I want it. Absolutely latest when you start a family is when you look at this thing here. It's not about a box-ticking exercise. Yes, our engineers are proud that if they have the highest score of anybody in the class in 2024, in this case in Euro NCAP, fine, you take that little gold star, put it on your exam paper, and you feel good about yourself. But it's not the thing.
In R&D at Mercedes, we say one star is enough. The Mercedes-Benz star. Seventy five-plus years of refining this part of the recipe, having had over decades, hundreds of accidents forensically investigated and translating it into engineering solutions that keeps you safe. This is a core value of the Mercedes-Benz brand. And I think one of the main reasons you should look at when you buy a car, that is Mercedes-Benz. And that recipe continues. I talked about the ride and drive. Yeah, here is a pre-production car of the new CLA. And it's like a calling card for a whole host of vehicles that are coming here in the next few years.
The very first time I stepped into this car, and Markus had driven it, the prototype before, he goes like, "Ola, I don't want to promise too much, but you're going to be excited and all that and the other." My very first feeling was not thinking about the class-leading electric drivetrain or all the ADAS stuff and all of that. It was not my first thought. My very first thought was, "I'm not sitting in a CLA. I'm actually sitting in a car that is one class up, a C-Class." The ride and drive, the solidity of it, the performance of it felt like a more adult car. That feeling of comfort, of safety, performance. Yeah, if you want to take it to the track, yeah, maybe you can take a Mercedes to the track. I wouldn't advise you to do that.
I would go to our friends in Affalterbach at AMG. That's where you get race technology for the road. But it is this feeling of effortlessness. Inside the car, anybody who has the privilege of sitting in the back of an S-Class or even better, a Maybach S-Class, from time to time, I do this. At the moment, my company car is an EQS SUV Maybach. It is so insanely quiet and serene that when I ride in the morning with my driver, I'm even tempted to strike up a conversation with him. But I don't want to waste the time, so I use it to do my emails and inform myself about what's going on. Here's an example where we have upped the game in the EQS. Yes, a very aerodynamically shaped car, class-leading aerodynamics, hence the best range in its class.
But with the executive seating now in the EQS, you get almost the S-Class combustion feeling. On the Digital side, MB.OS, and I don't want to steal your thunder, Markus. I'll leave most of this to you. And I just want to say one thing. It's about you. It's not about the tech. It's about what the tech can do for you. I'll leave it at that. And then with regard to styling, and we'll come back to this several times today, we are readying the next generation of styling. For those of you who will see the presentation, you will see it.
But there needs to be a level of timelessness to it so that when you look back 20, 30, 40 years later and you see it, of course, cars will look different in the future, but you look back and you go, the proportions are right, the lines are right. It just feels right. Even if you know nothing about cars, subliminally, it needs to feel right. So that's the recipe. But the recipe is not just the product. I'm the first to admit that we are a product-centric company. Quite often you talk to consultants, you need to be customer-centric. Yeah, yes, you are customer-centric, but we come in our DNA from the product side and then to the customer. But we are working very intensively on the customer side as well. Today we're in a building that we call the Center of Excellence.
If you know the name, Raimund Dornburg, sorry, Raimund, for outing you now in front of a very large audience here in the world, if you know this name within the Mercedes-Benz family, you know you've made it. Raimund is the guy who runs this place. This is the place for the very best Mercedes customers. They come here and they spend hours here looking at options from our MANUFAKTUR. And for those of you who saw the presentation of AMG yesterday, you saw that we're kind of increasing the level of MANUFAKTUR content in our vehicles on the upper end. We are making that also strategic imperative. In a building only five minutes away from here, we have more or less cleared a whole part of the factory and turned it into a MANUFAKTUR production. Yes, it's craftsmanship. Yes, it's expensive.
Yes, if you buy a tailor-made suit on Savile Row, you expect to pay maybe a little bit more than if you buy a prêt-à-porter in one of the department stores. That is what MANUFAKTUR is all about. We will continue to build the individualization for Mercedes-Benz customers, not just here, but also make it more available and more convenient for customers around the world to tap into it. Speaking of customers, we have the product, we have the individualization of product. What about the other touchpoints? Maybe I should have shown a picture of our service network around the world. There is no premium luxury brand that has a broader and stronger service network than Mercedes-Benz around the world. It is actually one of our assets, and it is also an asset in the intense competition with new entrants into the market.
Yes, the service level of spare parts is extremely high at Mercedes-Benz. Usually, you don't have to wait. If you have to wait, I'm sure the customer says, "Hello, I'm waiting," and we will respond quickly to it. So all of those mechanisms in the background, the ingredients for a successful automotive company, they're relevant and we're working on them, but we're also trying to improve every single touchpoint vis-à-vis the customer to make the experience for the customer even better. On the left-hand side, you see an example of an almost insane Mercedes showroom invested by one of our private investors that says, "I believe in this brand. I've seen what you have in the product portfolio. I'm going to put $100 million+ into a facility that is almost like a place for pilgrimage for Mercedes fans." The digital side, little anecdote from the past.
Some years ago, my dad or my parents, who live in Sweden, said, "Want to buy a Mercedes?" Yes, they drive Mercedes. And I said, "Let me help you configure the car." In this case, it was an E-Class. And I sat down with my dad to configure the car. I pretended with him as if I had everything under control, but it felt a little bit like I needed a PhD degree to understand all the combinations that I could configure. Good thought, execution may be not perfect. The marketing and sales team has spent a tremendous amount of time to make the digital journey not only seamless into the physical journey, but much more convenient, much more easier to access. And yes, you can even buy a car online.
Most people don't do that because it's a very big purchase, but you can do it if you want to. So the Digital side of it is also important. We will continue to invest in the digital customer experience. Last but not least on this slide, if you see this artifact, it's even better than knowing Raimund Dornburg. If you get it in this Silver Arrows program that we're launching this year, starting here in Germany and then going into different markets, if you have this artifact, you are actually recognized as one of the best customers in the Mercedes-Benz family. Ask the risk. You will have to spend quite a bit of money to get one. But it's not about the money. It's about being part of a family.
So on the very top end of our portfolio, we want to create a unique family for those customers and offer them experiences above and beyond the normal stuff, a little bit money can't buy type of things as well, and access to information and other things that you just don't get as a normal person. I talked about this launch program. Okay, so what is it? Yeah, what is coming? Where are the cars? Yeah, we have a very good product portfolio now. I think we have more than 40 different models. Many of them are new. They're very successful. The new E-Class is really cleaning house, Markus. But now it's that we're going to reskin the whole portfolio here in the next three years and into 2028 as well. But the period starting middle of this year to end of 2027 is going to be particularly intense.
I mentioned styling. Styling is, as I said, kind of a zeitgeist thing. Modern luxury doesn't stand still. You reinvent luxury all the time. If you go into an old apartment in Paris, a beautiful old apartment that was built 100 years ago, it's beautiful. But if you would build it today, it would not look the same. You have to evolve this and you have to look into the future, and starting next year in 2026, we're going to kind of enter the next era of the design language. What has guided us here? When I was a kid, I grew up in Malmö in the south of Sweden. Most families back then, let's say in the 1970s, maybe early 1980s, they drove Volvo or Saab.
If there was somebody in the neighborhood that had a Mercedes, and maybe that was a little bit more unusual there than if I had grown up here in Germany, I guarantee you that every single kid on the street knew who that was. And the symbol of it, I pulled out a grille from the past with this honeycomb pattern. It's like even if you see it in your indirect sight, you go, "That's a Mercedes." I talked about distilling the recipe. The styling is also part of the recipe. The technical functionality, the packaging, how you sit, and all those other things, of course, no compromises there, but it's part of the recipe. So it's almost like we have done a soul search and go back into what is the Mercedes soul design-wise, but carry that into the future.
That will start in 2026 and be the design gradually for all models of Mercedes-Benz, regardless if they are BEVs or ICE vehicles. Let's talk about the vehicles. Of course, I cannot in this public domain show what's behind the curtain here on every one of them. Look at this picture. You know, we sort our world when we think about how our portfolio is built up, top end. Yeah, the AMGs, the Maybachs, the Gs, the S-Class, the GLS, that kind of family. Core where we have the E-Class and the C-Class and the GLCs and the GLE and entry, the new MMA modular architecture where the CLA is, where the GLA is, GLB, and so on. I don't know if I've even counted, but it's probably more than 25 items on this list.
For the investor, you can see that most of those are actually sitting on the top end. Some of them are, of course, derivatives of core models that AMG does. That's what they do. Some of them are unique AMG models. In the core side, and I think this is crucially important, especially for the BEV take rate that we expect to start growing once we have broadened our portfolio, launched this family. The CLA itself today is actually a niche vehicle in our sales. Why all the fuss? It's because it starts. It's kind of the first domino that falls in a whole host of cars. But you can also see here, and this is something that we told you more than a year ago, decided at the end of 2023, as we could see the transformation is going to take longer. It's going to be more heterogeneous.
We had already made the decision to make sure that we have the ICE portfolio updated for the latest emissions and all the other refinements that we're doing to that. So you see quite a balanced picture here between BEV and ICE. Great news for the customer. All of the above, everything is available well into the 30s from Mercedes-Benz. A challenge for the financial controller, for the engineer. How do you create the modular strategies? You can actually afford this. I will let Markus and Harald do the heavy lifting on explaining how that's possible. But I think we have also made that recipe work for us for the next few years. Okay, the CLA, the first kind of showing of this car was two years ago, a little less than two years ago at the International Auto Show in Munich. We made some promises.
You show a vision car. It's going to have good range and class-leading efficiency. And you're going to charge almost as fast as you can fuel. It will have built-in supercomputers. Every single Mercedes from this point forward is going to have supercomputers. It's going to have all the sensors set. So you have the maximum, let's say, compute and hardware genes already in this car and every other car for any ADAS level that your software people are able to dream up. I mean, it's the whole package. Are we going to keep the promise that we made in Munich two years ago? Answer is yes and then some. Now, the world premiere of this car is about four weeks from now at another event. So I'm going to stop there. Otherwise, we don't have to have that event. And then we want to launch it by the summer.
And you should not take out victory before you finish the game. So pressure on you, Markus, and the team to now, I don't know, climb the Hillary steps and get up onto the summit and make sure that we finish the work so we enter with a high-quality Mercedes product. But it's in the making. But more important is actually this car. So I would suggest that you show up in Munich again this year because this car is just behind that car. This is the first car on the so-called MB.EA architecture. It is the all-new electric GLC. And yes, that will be the main show. Spoiler alert, come on, people, you can't stop me. I'm live on stage. It will be in Munich, and we will show you what that MB.EA family is going to look like.
Needless to say, if this car has pretty good technical stats, that car is also going to have pretty good technical stats. Here's where the modular strategy also comes into play. That what we really have done is we have developed two platforms. One is a powertrain platform, and the other one is an operating system platform. When you have those platforms, I'm going to call them technology platforms, you can then apply them to different vehicles, and they go across many vehicles. Also next year, another important car, GLE car family, GLE, GLS, super popular, quite margin-strong. Maybe you will say something about that, Harald. That gets a complete remake next year as well, including an even longer wheelbase version for the Chinese market. It would be a bit strange, right?
If you launch all this Space Age tech in the BEVs, but you would leave kind of the ICE doing their thing. You can't do that. So you take the tech from this and you put it into this. So we will proliferate the tech in terms of ADAS, in terms of infotainment, and all those different things that are relevant to the customers from BEV to ICE. The S-Class. The S-Class. The pinnacle of automotive engineering, our flagship car. Gets a facelift next year. A normal facelift is you update the tech a bit, you do something to the optics, ready to go. This facelift is different. Spending-wise, and of course, we don't have targets to spend more money, but spending-wise, we're spending considerably more on the facelift of the next S-Class than we would normally do. Because it would be a little bit odd, right?
If your calling card entry product into the portfolio in some domains technologically would be hierarchically above the S-Class. That's not how it works at Mercedes. So the S-Class gets the full monty and will also get this tech and also get quite the comprehensive design update along the lines of the very successful new E-Class that we launched only a year ago to create some kind of a coherence within that family. Speaking about the E-Class, we have an E-Class, we have an EQE. They're both good, they're different. The new combustion E-Class is in most markets class-leading. China really hit the spot. Last time I was in China, I talked to our Head of Digital Development there. I was driving some of the ADAS functions. I was looking at the automated parking, and I was looking at the latest version of our integrated Amap navigation.
I said, "Boah, that's really, really, really good." I would kind of like to have that in Germany. Obviously, you know we have different providers around the world. One of the reasons why we teamed up with Google now for this generation and so on. He said, "Yeah, he's getting kind of calls from some of the Chinese attackers that are now looking at the navigation system in the new E-Class and going, 'What the hell have those guys done?'" I think we also need to blow a hole a little bit in the myth that you have to be a startup company to understand what digital experience is about. No, you don't. You can also be an incumbent. It's absolutely our ambition to be at the forefront of digital experience in any market. The toughest market is the Chinese market.
Now we have that E-Class, we have the EQE, but in 2027, we're going to launch the new electric E-Class, and it will be in every dimension as good or better than the combustion E-Class. No compromise. As good or better than the combustion E-Class. No compromise on size, seating, anything like that. Of course, again, tech galore in terms of eDrive train and all that. You can take that more or less for granted, but it will represent something totally different for us in that segment in about two years from now, and yes, you will see a design model of that later this afternoon if you're part of the group that is here in the room. Tech. I'm not going to give your presentation, Markus. MB.OS, we're in the driver's seat. We're the architects. Markus will do the rest.
ADAS, we invented it, I don't know, 30 years ago. We want to stay on the forefront. For those of you who are lucky drivers of an S-Class or an EQS in Germany, actually taking it to 95 km an hour, even though you can drive in some places 200 km an hour on the German Autobahns. But now this is really starting to work. You put yourself in the right lane and you literally have time for yourself and you trot along at 95 km an hour, which is decent while maybe you're doing something else. Maybe you want to make a call and concentrate on the call. Maybe you want to check your text messages, whatever it is what you want to do. It's really starting to come together. And yes, but Marco will dive into it. We will launch this car in China with Level 2++.
Yes, we were the first company again that got a Level 4 approval testing in China. Sustainability and decarbonization. Even though the political landscape is shifting and changing, the road to decarbonization is something that we must do as a world, as an industry, and as a company. We define that through our ambition that by the end of the next decade, we want to be net carbon neutral. Yes, of course, it's about the electric car, but it's not just about the product. It's about the supply chain, our own operations, obviously the product, but also the product in use. In every one of those verticals, we are making progress and will diligently continue to drive towards that goal, even though the EV take rate obviously is not a straight line. It will just happen automatically.
It maybe takes a little bit longer, but we're on that journey, so it's not a surprise that our goal is to comply with CO2 regulations also here in Europe. Harald, you mentioned a little bit potential burden in 2025, so if you dissect the numbers of Mercedes-Benz cars, clearly we met the target in 2024. That was a foregone conclusion. In 2025, Harald suggested it could be a challenge. Why is it a challenge? Because we have a hugely successful Van division, and if you register a van as a passenger car in Europe, it counts against your passenger car fleet. If you have seen a van, it's a very big boxy thing. Usually more people ride in it, so per person, probably the CO2 footprint is lower, but in the calculation per car, it's higher.
That is a segment that is not yet on the level of electrification compared to passenger cars. With the VAN.EA starting next year, we're going to try to make a dent there. But that alone, I would say, burdens our average on the passenger cars, but maybe up to 10 g. It depends on how many we sell. Without that, solving that math problem given by the teacher would be a hell of a lot easier. And maybe the regulator did not think in that fine granularity when the regulation was written. So be it. I think the best way to negotiate, let's say, the coming period is to do this in a thoughtful way through our Smart Joint Venture together with Geely. Actually, we were already in a pool. They own Volvo and Polestar. That pool is now Volvo, Polestar, and Smart. We're in it.
So we can take advantage of that at a lower cost than if penalties would have to be paid. I think that's a rational economical decision. But I want to make clear what our intent is. Once we have launched all these products, which happens here through the next 24, 30, 36 months, we want to run up our EV share and naturally be compliant. That is our goal. Again, Markus, you will talk about these drivetrains. And we have them both, next-gen, all bells and whistles, eDrivetrain, but also completely refreshed combustion portfolio starting next year. Flexibility. All the plants are more or less flexible already. Thank goodness we did that. That's one of the benefits from the first kind of generation, first chapter of transformation. But it's also about the product. Why should the customer expect something less in either category, BEV or ICE?
Guiding principle, back to you, Markus, a guiding principle would be everything that you have learned as a customer, that you've learned to appreciate. Let's make sure that we protect that appreciation in every vehicle that we put on the road from this point forward, including the BEVs. Factories are flexible, but supply chain management is also going to be unbelievably important because one level down or one level up in the upstream, you have to manage the percentages between the ICE drivetrains and the EV drivetrains, even if your assembly plant can build both. If you are an incumbent, an established manufacturer, that is a challenge that everybody has. I think we have laid the groundwork for this. We're pretty good at it. But I also want to send a message here.
I said before that on the Van side, we made an adjustment yesterday to our production network through selling the Argentine plant, better fixed cost utilization of that plant going forward. If we need to take steps to adjust the suit to fit the body, we'll take steps to make the suit fit the body. Harald, I think you will talk about that as well. and Next Level Performance, it's kind of your chapter, Harald, so I'll try to go quickly through this. Just want to say a few things. Sometimes I read what is written and you go like, have they actually understood what's going on? Let me say something about direct sales, and I will use it with one example. A few weeks ago, I visited the most significant market in Europe, Sweden, Denmark.
It was a joke, but I was in my home country, and it is an important market for us. We're market leaders in Sweden and Denmark, by the way, in the segment, and I was actually there to renew my passport, but I said, if I'm there anyway, let's meet the team and see what's going on, and on the day, there was a dealer board meeting, so I met with the dealer board to discuss with them. Sweden, as some of you know, was actually the very first market that we turned toward direct sales back in 2018. The first little baby steps. We didn't really know. You have seen the PowerPoint slide. Does it really work?
I'm the first to admit that even though I had left marketing and sales at the time, Britta, who took over from me when she tried to convince some of those Swedish dealers to jump into direct sales, and it's not in the nature of an entrepreneur to kind of give up some entrepreneurial freedom, the first response was not positive. She called me and said, "Ola, you need to go to Sweden and talk sense into these guys." So I went to Sweden, tried to talk sense into them, and I threw 10 arguments at them. Why would you do it? They threw five arguments at me, why we should not do it. It ended with one of those, maybe that's en vogue now, negotiation strategies where I said, "Whether you like it or not, we're going to do this." And we did.
Some of these dealers I know personally for many, many years, and I sat there in front of them. Of course, if I come, they're not going to be impolite. But even Swedes that are usually nice people, between Swedes, we can talk hard talk as well. Every single one of those dealers in the room said, "You were right, we were wrong." This was a good step. Why? Sell the product, don't sell the price. That's the number one thing. Number two, their risk profile changes. And if you do this right as an agent dealer, you have a different Risk-Adjusted business model. But I don't need to explain to a bunch of investors and a list that Risk-Adjusted Return on Capital is the whole name of the game, right? And they have ended up in a healthy situation. Customer satisfaction has gone up.
In a recent study last year where you measure pretty much every single KPI, Mercedes scored the highest. Allocation of product is done in a more efficient way because you centrally control your market stock. Maybe easier in a geographically big, but smaller market like Mercedes-Benz. So it's coming together. You got to have IT systems that work. It's not easy to do it. And in the beginning, you struggle. And you cannot have two models going at the same time in a market. Forget that. You don't drive on the right-hand side of the road and left-hand side of the road at the same time. It's just not going to work. So should you embark on this endeavor, you got to go all in. So in the markets where this is possible, mainly Europe and overseas, we're going all in and we're going to continue doing it.
China could spend the whole day on China. How do we win in China? The most intense market in the world with 100-plus companies vying for the new energy vehicle market. Subdued consumer sentiment and not the same dynamism in the economy that we had up until COVID. Here, it's about the fundamentals. Make cars that the Chinese customers want. Make sure that your tech is on the highest level of what they expect. Make sure that the packaging is right. Make sure that the Mercedes-ness is right so you differentiate yourself from the 100 new ones that are also many of them pretty good, but look kind of the same, and then the other thing you have to do is you have to lower your cost structure.
So we must, over these next few years, localize even more in China, do more in China for China, use China more as an R&D base, tap into the talent pool there, tap into the innovation pool there. And all of you know, they are strong. It's a formidable competitive landscape. You got to be. China has to be a home away from home. Not something where you have a magic bullet where you can just say, "Do this and everything solves itself." This is going to be a very hard competition going forward. Make no mistake. But we're gearing up for it. We're not retreating and going, "Oh, what's going on here?" We're gearing up for it and we're going to fight for our position in China. Don't do crazy things like start a fire sale to just protect some sales volume in some segment. That we won't do.
But we will spend a tremendous amount of our time and resources to, on the one hand, defend, but also build the China position in the next five years. Cost, Harald, I leave it to you, but no stone unturned. Culture. I've been in this company for 32 years now. Is the culture the same today as it was in 1993? I would argue the answer to that is no. It has evolved significantly. There are some core traits that are the same that maybe even come from our founding fathers. But when you question yourself and you do an inventory of yourself, we tend to spend, of course, 99.9% looking at the technical inventory and talking about technical solutions or how we're going to get the cost down.
But you must also take time to do an inventory of your culture and ask yourself, do you have the fighting spirit to take on those new competitors? Yes or no? Or are you too complacent just because you have had decades or a 100 years plus of success? And it's very easy to fall into that trap. It's very easy to fall into the big company trap. Yes, but. So a workstream that is equally important in Next Level Performance is to do this inventory.
Part of the way we're going to do this is not that I'm going to sit at home in the evening and write a manifesto and then come back to the company and tell the Board first, "Listen, listen, colleagues, this is what we need to do." Even though I have ideas of how I think we need to act and what fighting spirit is all about, and I believe I have that intrinsically in me, we're also going to let champions on all levels in the company rise and provide input. So if you call this like a soft workstream in the Next Level Performance, maybe it is, but probably it's not. Because if we can change the culture, refine the culture to become even more performance-oriented, have the battle awareness. The jungle is changing. Survival of the fittest. It's not the biggest animal that survives.
It is the one that is most able to adapt that survives. And when new animals come into that jungle, we have to adapt. So I think we have this insight. Turning a 160,000-person company completely around overnight is not the way it works, but we're going to work on this as well. And if we do it well, the new refined recipe of Mercedes-Benz, the new distilled version of it, will be more attractive to our customers. We will launch a host of products that we believe will also drive growth. Through discipline, we can uphold financial resilience. Much of that financial resilience goes back into the technology, clearly, but also a healthy piece of it goes to our investors. Thank you very much. And I think I'm going to hand over to Markus to give us more detail on the technical side.
Yeah, thank you very much, Ola, and welcome, and as Ola said, we are kickstarting the most exciting product push in our history, and every Mercedes in that push will be a Mercedes, offering maximum customer choice from a portfolio of electric and high-tech hybrid vehicles, and all with a perfect combination of intelligence and emotion. They will be uncompromising, highly desirable, and of course, our clear target is to make them profitable. Today, I will show you how we are pushing these boundaries and delivering results. I will tell you about the new Level 2++ automated driving features, our radical new steer-by-wire, and the fully integrated tech stack in all our cars. We can promise you a full rollout of battery electric, plug-in hybrids, and high-tech combustion engine models, each one powered, or you said it, by a supercomputer. That includes the upcoming GLC.
It all starts very soon with the world-beating new CLA. Our new models will do much more than providing transport from A to B. They will be an intelligent part of your life. We are already delivering benchmark intelligence with the new E-Class, with the precursor to our Mercedes-Benz operating system, MBUX. This is just the start, and we are making rapid progress. Our developments offer huge potential for customer benefit, and the transformation through AI will be a key enabler. With MBUX and AI, we aim to create the most intelligent and emotional cars we have ever made. That's because they change our relationship with the customer, giving us direct contact with the customer and allowing us to deliver direct benefits, but also creating synergies, efficiencies, and new business. Let me break that down into three categories of AI. Start with the first one.
For customer conversational AI, this brings new customer experiences. We are already doing this with ChatGPT, which has greatly enhanced the experience of our MBUX voice assistant for general knowledge questions. It offers natural conversations that are more like chatting to a friend. With behavioral AI, we train our systems based on human patterns to create more natural user experience. This includes personalized and proactive suggestions, and it also elevates the driving behavior of our Level 2++ system, known as point-to-point assisted driving. The third category is Agentic AI. We're using multiple agents to develop our hyper-personalized user experience. So that's kind of the end of the apps. Our new MBUX Virtual Assistant based on MB.OS is the first big step. It uses a multi-agent approach to pick the best agent to answer questions.
Using the latest large language models and context awarenesses, it can answer follow-up questions in a very natural way, like you would be a human conversation, and it makes it even easier for our customers to connect with a vehicle. Finally, we are also looking intensively into VLAMs, Vision Language Action Models, which can enhance automated driving and in future help to bring voice communication and car behavior even closer together. Our MB.OS embraces AI because it's a very own system. It brings scalable and flexible intelligence into our entire portfolio. The benefits introduced into the new E-Class are also now available in the C-Class, CLE, and GLC, so the new CLA, based on MMA architecture, will be the first vehicle to run entirely on MB.OS, making it our first software-defined vehicle. It's the world premiere. It's going to be next month with market launch this year.
From now on, all vehicles in all segments will run on MB.OS. That includes our combustion and hybrid portfolio, as well as all our electric architectures. Our MB.EA for core and top-end vehicles, AMG.EA for high-performance vehicles, and VAN.EA for our van portfolio. Why do we want our own operating system? Because we want to be the architects with full control over the system and direct contact to our customers. The architecture covers all domains: infotainment, automated driving, body and control, driving and charging. We have control of all sensors and actuators across all of them. This enables us to offer our customer a truly superior product experience. Two years ago, we announced this incredible new digital experience. Now we are delivering. Our own operating system is already up and running. It is ready to hit the road now with a new CLA.
MBUX is purpose-built and highly versatile. This allows us to work with the best partners where we need them, and we can choose the third-party content our customers want in all markets and regions. Navigation is one example. We are working with the best local partners: Google for Western markets, Amap for China, T map for Korea, and this is good for our customers and good for competition. We decide who we want as our partners so we can offer our customers the true Mercedes-Benz user experience with the features they want and the style they love. MBUX is data-driven and personalized, and we ensure that the highest requirements for privacy and safety are built in by design. Our architecture is scalable to fit every segment and is designed to decouple software and hardware development.
MBUX has advanced connectivity, and all the computes in the car can be updated over-the-air. This allows us to keep our vehicles fresh for the entire lifecycle. Final testing of the CLA is delivering great results. See for yourself what customer benefits MBUX will bring.
Welcome to MBUX. Created for customers tailored to every market, constantly improving with over-the-air software updates, high-performance computing combined with access to all sensors and actuators for an intuitive and immersive customer experience, bringing AI-based and point-to-point assistance systems to the latest models. Now you can also upgrade the driving assistance systems even after you bought the vehicle. MBUX Virtual Assistant, combining human-like conversations and the best generative AI tools into one powerful solution. Best-in-class navigation and amazing 3D graphics. Your favorite infotainment anywhere, anytime. Video streaming, AAA gaming, video conferencing, and much more.
Even better, in the future, your car will be able to power your home or support the grid thanks to bidirectional charging. For a new level of intelligence, safety, comfort, and fun. This is MBUX.
So, as I said before, MBUX will be a key differentiator for the AI-powered intelligent cabin. Our stunning pillar-to-pillar displays offer seamless interaction and control for driver and passenger. The next-generation MBUX Superscreen offers a unique user experience with real-time 3D graphics. The smart cabin is a key element for the utmost customer experience in combination with Level 3 automated driving and beyond. With AI, we are making even more immersive and hyper-personalized fit for all passengers. Our MBUX virtual assistant elevates your relationship with the car. It brings a human-like sense of empathy, intelligence, and memory.
This means chatting to the virtual assistant is like a normal conversation, and our customers get quick, easy, and up-to-date answers for their questions, from navigation information to general knowledge, and our multi-agent architecture includes generative AI models like ChatGPT and Gemini. The MBUX Virtual Assistant seamlessly selects the right agent to deliver the best experience. Meanwhile, our MBUX Surround Navigation combines route guidance and advanced assistance. It is especially helpful in busy urban environments, and it is all powered by the latest high-performance chips. MBUX is designed for deep system integration, enabling a high level of orchestration of all domains. That means full networking and control of everything, including video, sound, light, and even air conditioning. The result is a truly immersive customer experience, and as you can see, our intelligent cabin is also a highly emotional cabin.
MBUX will also transform assisted and automated driving, where we already have more than 40 systems. For example, our self-initiated automatic lane change on highways, which we'll call Level 2+, and assistance with leaving and changing highways. The launch of MBUX also brings a new name for these advanced functions, MB Drive. They are based on our sophisticated safety systems and will include further enhancements like Level 2++ capability. An example is point-to-point assisted driving, which enables mature handling of complex urban traffic. Cooperative steering and acceleration is a unique feature offered only by Mercedes-Benz. It helps the driver navigate busy streets in the world's biggest cities. It is tailor-made for local conditions, and because we work with the best local partners, we are independent also of geopolitics. We remain the global leader in Level 3 conditionally automated driving. Drive Pilot was the first world system internationally approved.
The latest update supports even a higher speed of up to 95 km per hour in Germany. Drive Pilot is the fastest Level 3 system globally. Our goal is to increase speed to 130 km per hour by the end of this decade. Last year, we took another big step in Level 4 highly automated driving. We became the first international car maker to receive approval for testing in Beijing on designated urban roads and highways. The result will support developments for privately owned vehicles in China and worldwide. Increased use of AI will definitely change the future of automated driving. Rule-based models are being replaced by stacks with end-to-end models, always with a focus on utmost safety and transparency. We, as the architects of MBUX, are able to plan strategically and with full access from hardware to app.
We did a lot of work using in-house free and open software, but where appropriate, we also worked with specialist partners. This modular and flexible approach is also clever and cost-optimized. We are able to choose the best partners for local needs and achieve geopolitical independence. MBUX gives us full control of the software and the stack and enables hardware-agnostic development. This allows us to protect our investment and enables continuous improvement. Most importantly, we can offer our customers an outstanding user experience. So what can you expect? It's a short video from Ola filmed on the busy streets of Shanghai.
[Foreign language] Follow that person. Oh, my goodness. That's not even legal. Don't scratch the paint. You have to find the cabin. Yeah, yeah. Even a human being that drives that, sometimes you will make a mistake. Let's take the challenge.
They did a great job. The car did a great job of mastering complex situations. But intelligence, that's not stopped there. It also helps to involve the core of Mercedes-Benz values like comfort. Our experts fine-tune every chassis detail to create a unique Mercedes-Benz driving character. We also use intelligent innovations to enhance it even further. Our predictive chassis adjustment uses the potential of our fleet data and the Mercedes-Benz Intelligent Cloud. This means our systems can anticipate bumps and obstacles for an even smoother and more comfortable ride. Switching to another chassis innovation. Today, I'm happy to announce that we will offer our customers a new technology, steer-by-wire. It will radically enhance the way you steer your Mercedes. The feel offers a completely new customer experience. The new flat steering wheel is a bit like the ones in our F1 cars and the AMG ONE.
It provides a better view of the pillar-to-pillar display, letting it really shine. In the future, we will improve the automatic driving experience while streaming our favorite show or making a video call. Steer-by-wire enhances agility in the city and increases the fan factor at higher speeds. You can really feel the improvements in lateral agility and handling precision. The system interacts perfectly with our rear-axle steering, which also makes parking and maneuvering easier than ever before. Plus, steer-by-wire offers unlimited possibilities to individualize the driving experience. And there's even the option to connect it to apps for in-car gaming. In addition, it reduces complexity and hardware variance and cost. So thanks to the intelligence of MBUX, our future models will be the smartest in town. But because they are Mercedes-Benz, they will also be the most emotional, above all in their looks.
That comes from our enhanced design strategy. Its sleek, elegant lines bring more style, substance, and presence. Exterior highlights include sporty and aerodynamic proportions, a stunning front end with illuminated grille, a new headlight design, a powerful presence that feels like a class above, and a signature rear design with distinctive taillights. On the inside, we are bringing many high-end features as standard. They include luxurious sustainable materials and, of course, the best displays in the segment. When we talk about emotions, we also mean no compromises in comfort, design, and driving pleasure. That is why there's no one-size-fits-all at Mercedes. Our lineup is uncompromising from entry to top end. We will not sacrifice key values in the name of drivetrain flexibility. Let me explain, starting with our core and top-end models.
They will have dedicated battery electric offerings and dedicated high-tech electrified combustion and plug-in hybrid offerings. These will have longitudinal rear-wheel drive layouts, which our customers love. We believe this is the best way to meet demanding customer requirements. With dedicated offerings, we will beat the competition where it matters in terms of space, comfort, and versatility. Next is the new CLA, the first in a family of new Mercedes-Benz vehicles, all built electric-first and uncompromising. Each new model will be a true Mercedes-Benz in every respect, which is just as uncompromising. The space-saving transverse engine layout works perfectly with both electric and hybrid drive in the segment. This makes our MMA well-suited to drivetrain flexibility. Let's take a closer look. In this segment, we have our high-tech four-cylinder M252 engine. It's paired with an electrified eight-speed dual-clutch transmission. This transverse engine is purpose-designed for front-wheel drive.
That means no packaging compromise between electric and hybrid solutions. And the electric drive characteristics are far superior, thanks to our Electric Drive Unit 2.0 with a two-speed gearbox. This maximizes efficiency across the Board, from driving around town to cruising at high speed on the Autobahn. It's really the new efficiency benchmark. We will demonstrate this very soon with a new CLA, a clear transfer from our Vision EQXX technology program, which pushed through barriers. The Vision EQXX broke efficiency records in range and consumption. As a result, the CLA is the benchmark in its class, not only in range and consumption, but also in recharge range and charging power. Our customers spend more time driving and less time charging. This means the CLA is not only energy efficient, but also time efficient. Now I want to turn back to our core and top-end vehicles.
Here we will offer more interior space than the competition. That's because their drivetrain flexible approach is a compromise. Quite simply, electric layouts are not compatible with longitudinal engines. A longitudinal engine pushes the cabin backwards, while an Electric Drive Unit at the rear pushes the cabin forward. That means less room in the cabin, limited efficiency, and restricted battery size. The Mercedes way is uncompromised. This means our customers are not forced to accept these sacrifices. Our dedicated electric plug-in hybrid and electrified combustion models for core and top-end mean interior space is not sacrificed due to drivetrain. Our vehicles are lower, lighter, and more efficient, and we keep our emotional design with luxury proportions. In real terms, it means MB.EA models will be superior in all key dimensions.
For instance, our upcoming all-electric E-Class will offer best-in-class rear seat comfort, and our upcoming GLC with EQ Technology will also excel. With this dedicated 800-V electric layout, the GLC is the all-electric SUV our customers have been waiting for. It sets benchmarks in performance, range, efficiency, and charging speed, and it has all the GLC trademark versatility and practicability. Customers will be able to choose from a full range of battery electric and hybrid drivetrains. The new GLC will come to the markets next year. Our uncompromising approach uses a set of intelligent, scalable modules. This ensures efficient use of high-tech technologies across the entire portfolio. It includes high-performance MBUX hardware and software, especially in the key infotainment and automatic driving domains.
Our comprehensive drivetrain portfolio is also highly modular, with Electric Drive U nits and batteries that are scalable for all segments, and we have a full range of advanced, future-proof Euro 7-ready engines and transmissions. But it doesn't end there. We have modular systems in further key areas, including body and wide, chassis, seating, and more. In all markets, we will offer highly emotional, scalable drivetrains, whether battery electric or hybrid electric. Across the Board, our offerings span from high efficiency to high performance, from cost-effective LFP batteries to advanced NMC to high-performance round cells. In electric drivetrains, the highly efficient EDU 2.0 offers great flexibility. At the very top of our portfolio, our groundbreaking YASA Axial Flux motors bring unrivaled performance. Meanwhile, our next-generation hybrid engines are just as scalable. These high-tech units are electrified, fit for the future, fulfilling Euro 7 standards.
We offer a range of four to eight-cylinder petrol engines, and for some Maybach and G-Class models, even 12 cylinders. The portfolio includes a brand new V8 and a new four-cylinder engine M 252. This gives our customers maximum choice and maximum emotion across all drivetrains, all with a perfect combination of performance and cost efficiency. The same applies to our four and six-cylinder diesel offerings. In our electric offerings, we are delivering cutting-edge battery technologies. This brings customer benefits and cost reductions. Take the MMA battery. We have reduced cost per kilowatt-hour by 30% compared to the predecessor. Our hard work on LFP and NMC cell chemistries is paying off. We expect further improvements in energy density and cost efficiency. Driven by technology, we are also making strong progress with advanced types of cell chemistry. LMO and NMC brands are lowering costs while increasing energy density to NMC levels.
LNMO is a disruptive chemistry. It leverages the high potential of high-voltage applications at cell level, resulting in an attractive cost position. High silicon anodes are also helping us to increase energy density. At the same time, we are working hard to progress solid-state solutions. Intelligence will play an important role in that. Our next milestone is bringing a solid-state battery technology to the road. Our EQS demonstrator with solid-state cells is a world's first. In close cooperation with HPP in the U.K., we will pioneer a whole battery system with automotive cells for the very first time. Solid-state could increase cell energy density up to 450 Wh per kilogram. In our vehicles, the advantage of a lightweight battery with a lot of usable energy content is becoming increasingly important. This means up to 25% longer electric range at the same weight and size.
Our demonstrator can already cover 1,000 km on a single charge. Solid-state technology also brings improved cell safety, further weight, and energy efficiency through passive cooling. This uncompromising combination of intelligence and emotion is the Mercedes way. It is how we intend to deliver on our promise that every Mercedes will be a Mercedes, including products and features tailor-made for China. Our products and content for China are locally developed for our customers in that region. Our customers in China get specific apps and content, as well as their own infotainment and automated driving features, and a strong dedication to the rear cabin. Long-wheelbase versions will meet our Chinese customer requirements. In future, there will be seven long-wheelbase models across all segments and drivetrains. We are also ramping up speed of our R&D in China, maximizing the advantage of our global resources and local expertise.
Likewise, local innovation inspires and accelerates our global R&D. It is already our most wide-ranging R&D network outside of Germany, based on a presence dating back more than 20 years. Through this, we are delivering the technologies that excite our customers. Our strategic cooperation with local heroes is helping us to drive innovations even faster. This includes boosting localization with new facilities in Beijing and Shanghai to really make the most out of the local ecosystem and supplier landscape. This game changer combines Mercedes-Benz standards and values with China's speed. One word that describes competition in China currently is neijuan. This means involution, which refers to something that can no longer evolve, no matter how hard it tries. Resources are limited, and local competition is taking irrational decisions. But the efforts are delivering little or no returns. We will not be drawn into this downward spiral.
Across the Board, in all markets, we are elevating intelligence significantly. At the same time, we are greatly lowering complexity and cost. We are driving down variable cost with lower unit cost for our new entry batteries with LFP technology, by making localization in China, by developing Advanced Automatic Driving systems and Assistance systems without LiDAR, up to Level 2++ and without HD maps, and through strategic cooperation on our entry-level hybrid engines. We are achieving standardization that reduces the overall number of ECUs. Intelligent use of our models across our vehicle architectures will bring substantial benefits. We are streamlining our offer with fewer hardware variants. This includes a single ICE variant for entry-level models. When it comes to funding, we are right-sizing our global R&D resources.
Vertical integration of our MBUX allows an evolutionary approach, and we are also using digital tools to minimize our hardware use in test fleets. In a time of transformation, our agile approach into innovation is paying off. It enables the perfect combination of intelligence and emotions. We enable us to offer our customers the world's most desirable cars. The future begins right now with a new CLA. It is the cleverest car Mercedes-Benz ever made, with a world-beating new level of electric efficiency and digital intelligence. It makes a powerful statement and puts our R&D strategy on the road in customer hands. Thank you, and I will hand over to Harald.
Thank you, Markus. Incredible stuff. Isn't that insane?
You guys want to know, obviously, what that means for numbers, how all of that, what you heard, I mean, before comes together, and maybe what we're doing on the cost side. Before doing that, however, I would like to share just this slide with you here. It's very important that we share what are the assumptions on which we look into the future. I would say, I mean, you can read that yourself from the chart, but I mean, in overall, I mean, we take a prudent view when we look at the macro and the market evolution looking forward. That is baked into the statements we're going to make here with regard to the outlook. What does it mean all in all? How does that translate into our expectation for sales moving forward?
Stable level, I mean, in Europe, good momentum, solid momentum. I mean, for the U.S., cautious view on China, and overall, obviously, risk of tariffs is not something which probably in terms of overall economy is going to help, but I don't want to speculate on that much further at this juncture here. Now, let's dig a bit deeper and see how this incredible portfolio firework, I mean, to come, is going to impact sales and mix moving forward. On the sales side, we depart in 2024 from a bit less than two million, as we heard earlier today. In 2025, I mean, we take a more cautious view for the reasons just outlined, and as you heard in the guidance, I mean, this morning, but clearly, isn't there a point that this incredible portfolio firework is going to generate momentum in 2027?
Don't you think there is something in it with what you saw last night, what you see here, I mean, this morning, and what you're going to see this afternoon? I strongly believe in that. I very strongly believe in that. What does it mean for the mix on the top-end side? We target a share between 14% and 15% for the time to come. Definitely, the S-Class upgrade that I had been talking about is a very, very strong driver in this respect. But think about the AMG you saw last night, the beautiful CLE you could see, but I mean, also the AMG.EA, so on the EV as well on the ICE side. What does it mean for the xEV share moving forward?
We expect that to increase from 2026 onwards, obviously, when the CLA and the MMA is going to ramp, but then, as Ola pointed out, in particular, when the electric GLC and C-Class are going to hit the road. That is going to generate, I mean, a significant momentum on the EV side. Next to it, we have that very strong plug-in portfolio where we see solid, I mean, demand for that, and I think that is an additional opportunity which can be leveraged. All in all, we do expect that the xEV shares would therefore go up to more than 30% in 2027. Obviously, I need to say that finally, that depends on market conditions, on infrastructure availability, as well as on customer demand. What does it mean for the top line?
We are very much focused on the sales numbers all the time, but sometimes we don't look so much on the revenue lines, if I may say. I dare to look back for a second, 2019, 2024, where we all see sales down. If you look into the revenue, thanks to the mix and the pricing, actually, I find a CAGR of 2.5% between 2019 and 2024. What does it mean looking forward? Yeah, we want to drive a solid top line as well. What's driving that? Definitely ASP and pricing. Yes, it's a super competitive environment, but we want to stay disciplined. The strategy in terms of value over volume is in place. It has not been abandoned. However, it is a more competitive space as it was some time ago.
So we will be competitive in the market, but we stay disciplined on the pricing side. What does it mean for the revenue evolution? Well, obviously, I mean, for 2025 and 2026, revenue cannot disconnect from sales evolution, as we heard earlier. But again, 2027 with a product momentum that should allow to support the revenue expansion moving forward. Now, probably a question you also have. What does it mean all of these products, this gigantic portfolio, 40 positions in terms of the margin? What can you extract as a juice, as a margin out of it? I'm happy to elaborate a bit on this one. So let's get started with the top end. So these are truly, I mean, iconic products, aren't they?
I would say as high as the standard and the quality and the excellence of these products are as high as the margin of these products. When I stand here, I'm happy to say that with around 280,000 units we had in the top end in 2024, this contributed to more than 40% of the contribution margin of cars in 2024. Now just think a second about what is to come with AMG.EA, with the ICE lineup, with the S-Class. Don't you think that there's a bit of potential that this 280 could be a higher number moving forward, call it 300 or so, and the margin quality I was just talking about? Isn't that a significant potential in the lever moving forward? Up to you. I look at the core side. I would call it a healthy contribution. Well, what's that?
That's more than a million units, E-Class, a roaring success in the market, and I can say it's a very healthy contribution margin. We're printing, I mean, in that segment, not only in the E-Class, in that whole segment, so it also contributes approximately 40% to the contribution margin overall of passenger cars, and same thing here. You heard electric E-Class, electric GLC, electric C-Class, I mean, to come, so definitely, I think there is a potential for expansion on the volume, but also with healthy margins in that segment. Now, on the entry, you have a lot of questions. Is that dilutive? No, in my view, it's not. This is a solid margin contribution in the entry, and I would call it an accretive contribution margin quality.
This is around the 500,000 segment, and with CLA, MMA, we're elevating, I mean, the game in terms of a value proposition, and therefore, we also have the intent to retain that solid margin in the entry segment moving forward. Your other key question, obviously, is with a higher share of the EVs, what does it mean in terms of the margin for the portfolio? And how can you create or improve, I mean, the margin on the EV side? Well, I think you heard, I mean, the number one answer before. It is all about the product. The EV product needs to be at least as good as the ICE product. I'm 200% convinced of that one. And you will see it, I mean, this afternoon in the driving experience, and you will see it, I mean, also in the products, I mean, later today.
Can you close the margin gap on the top line on the pricing side? I think we all learned that the hard way. No, you cannot. So what can you do? Again, do the right product and get the cost right. So what are we doing here? We take the EV cost down by more than 15% over the predecessor versions of the respective, I mean, EV products. And that means we can narrow the gap between the ICE and the EVs in the future. At the same time, we also know, and you heard it, with the portfolio expansion on the ICE products, that ICE is going higher for longer. Isn't that great news? I think so.
So in terms of the certainty of driving the margin, I think we might have lost a bit sight of that one, that this is compared to some time ago where, I mean, there was the view of a much higher EV share. I think it's good news. Where is our emphasis going in terms of the investment focus? So I can say, you're coming to investments later, but at this juncture, as we're talking about the margin in the portfolio, it's already today more than 70% of the investments going into the top end and into the core. And I think it will rather go up moving forward.
Elevating the portfolio overall, not just in top end, but within the entry, within the core, and for sure, I mean, the top end overall, this is a very, very important and significant mitigant to a higher EV share moving forward. Maybe so far here on the top line side on the portfolio, but obviously, very important that we're laser-focused on cost and efficiencies, and we have come a long way on that, I would say. We're switching gears, we're stepping up, and that's why we created the Next Level Performance program, NLP, to boost competitiveness and resilience even further than that. Let's jump into that a bit. Obviously, the first thing you need to talk about that is what is your industrial capacity? Ola, I mean, you mentioned adjusting your suit to your body size. What did we do here over the last years?
We adjusted already. We adjusted to end of 2024, I would say around 2.5 million units capacity worldwide. You have that on the map. That is a map by the end of 2024. We did that by divestment in France, in Russia, in Brazil, in Indonesia. What are we doing moving forward? We will further right-size. In the three years to come, basically, we'll adjust the capacity to around 2-2.2 million units. How can we do that? We'll lower capacity by around 100,000 units in Germany. We'll increase and shift capacity to Kecskemét in Hungary for around 200,000 units. We'll end the GLB production in Mexico by the end of 2026. We have optionality in remote locations, and we have optionality for around 200,000 units in China.
And the testimony that we're serious about it is, I think, just the announcement which was made yesterday in terms of the divestment from the Van plant in Argentina. So we are serious about it. What does it mean in terms of plants in Germany? As there's so much talk about it, no, we have no intent to shut down an MB plant in Germany. We will limit the capacity of the German plants to around 300,000 units each. So how can we do that? We adjust the workforce. We adjust the workforce via attrition and temporary workforce cuts. So clearly, the target is to adjust the capacity to around 2- 2.2 million units. And at the same time, we retain flexibility in line with the portfolio evolution, expansion as market conditions will tell us.
Obviously, retain the flexibility we're having already today between ICE and EV in the respective facilities. Next to capacity, let's talk about, I mean, production cost. How can we attack production cost? Well, I'm happy to say that over the last, I mean, two years, basically, we reduced production costs since 2022 by 10%. So we target now an incremental, an additional 10% production cost reduction between here and 2027. And we will not rest there. We aim to double that number until the end of the decade. So you might wonder, I mean, how does that work? What are the levers? So, I mean, the first lever is moving east. I already mentioned before that we're stepping up the capacity in our factory in Hungary, in Kecskemét. And that means that the share of low-cost country in the EU will go from 15%-30% by 2027.
Why is that so favorable? I'm happy to say that the factor cost in that facility in Kecskemét are 70% lower than in Germany. We also will shift one product in the core segment to that facility in Kecskemét in the future. What are other, what are additional levers on the production cost? We are on the path to reduce headcount, I mean, in Germany through attrition. We'll step up the accountability for efficiency measures and competitiveness, I mean, at the plant level, reduce absenteeism, something which has been talked about quite a lot in recent days. We'll step up, I mean, production planning, digitalization, more use of AI, for example, in the end line quality control into the digital twins, everything.
But also reach out to logistics, so review that, transportation routes, and also attack, I mean, the energy cost by the use of more renewables such as wind park in northern Germany and photovoltaic on the roofs of our industrial facility. So all levers are being pulled here on the production cost. Now, let's have a look at our geopolitical hedge. So in particular, important when it comes to the tariff discussion, obviously. So this is not, I mean, something which is completely brand new to us as a philosophy of going local for local is already well embedded into the company. So what's our target here? From 60% in terms of local for local, we want to go to 70% local for local. And we can do that, obviously, by further localization of products into China as well as the option into the U.S.
Let's have a bit of a closer look in terms of what makes these facilities and these homes so special, so clearly, the U.S. is the home of our, I mean, SUVs in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, with around 250 to 300,000 units being produced locally, I mean, over there, of which two-thirds, I mean, get exported. It means that the trade balance on the vehicle level is roughly balanced, and we're one of the major exporters of vehicles, I mean, from the U.S. And in the midterm, it means from that facility, from the U.S., we're going to export top-end vehicles, top-end vehicle SUVs, I mean, to China, and we'll export from the U.S. top-end and core SUVs, I mean, to Europe and the overseas, and we have the potential, I mean, to localize, I mean, an additional product from the core segment into the U.S., into Alabama, into Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
How does it look for Europe? Europe, I would say, basically I'll call it the home of the top end, the kind of reference, the symbol of craftsmanship and excellence, with around 80% of the market being served locally. And obviously, here, the exports go mainly from Germany to top-end into China, and the top-end and the sedans also to U.S. and the rest of the world. China, a very strong local presence there with BBAC, our JV jointly with our partner BAIC. That serves around 80% of the market, I mean, locally. And by mid-2026, we will localize the long-wheelbase GLE for the Chinese market into China, but we are not doing any exports from China. Next chapter on efficiency, obviously, is material cost. So what is our target here? We want to reduce material cost by 8% until 2027. What are the key levers here?
That's our BEAT program, BEAT 2026, Markus, which you launched with Gunnar. Here, clearly, we do expect each and every supplier to be laser-focused to pull all levers to reduce material cost. I would say we got already very good traction in 2024. I talked that morning about the industrial performance, so you can see, I mean, in there. Let me be clear, this is not, I think, in the spirit of a classical conventional BEAT the supplier program. It is a cooperative approach. We bring the engineering and the procurement teams from Mercedes together with the respective teams, I mean, of the suppliers to challenge design, to challenge, I mean, specification, to work on higher level of standardization, to work on technical refinement, push design to cost initiatives, I mean, jointly with the suppliers.
Lever number two is, you heard it from Marcus, is a reduction of the battery cost, 30% reduction of the battery cost on MMA with the levers, I mean, through chemistry, LFP, through the economies of scale where we're doing here, the design and the sourcing as well on the battery side. Third lever on material cost is to reduce one-timers. And that's why, I mean, we started to introduce new flexibility approach, new flex rates into the contracts that should better shield us against idle cost risk in the future and should also support a decrease of one-time cost in the future. Fourth lever, we're talking very much about production material, but there's a little bit which is called non-production material, which is just EUR 20 billion. So lots of opportunity, I mean, to work on that one as well.
I mean, how demand management, specification, renegotiating contracts in this area, leveraging optimization, AI, outsourcing. So great potential in the non-production field. At the same time, however, let me be very clear, and you see it on the bottom of this chart, we will continue to step up the content of the vehicles to meet regulatory requirements, but as well to step up further the competitiveness of the vehicles. Now, on the investment side, I would say we are disciplined, very disciplined on the investment side. You can judge it yourself if you look at what has been achieved between 2019 and 2024 by the investments globally being down 8% net of inflation. But what's more important, obviously, is looking forward. So what does it mean in terms of the investment profile ahead of us?
For 2025, we do expect the overall investment, I mean, to go up by approximately EUR 1 billion to support the product launches you heard this morning, last night, you will see later today. But then from 2026 onwards, or from 2026 or in 2026, we expect this investment already to go over the peak and start to come down. That means for 2027, we target an investment level of around 10% below the 2024 level. Or in other words, 20% down compared to 2019. That is exactly what we promised back in the day a couple of years ago, despite all of the changes we did see in the landscape. Now, your question is going to be, how can you do that if you do all of these products? Let me wrap that up.
The investments in MMA, into electric GLC, into C-Class, into AMG.EA, they will be more or less completed by 2027, and we are already beyond the investment peak for these vehicles. We will obviously ramp up investments for future products to come when it comes to next generation S-Class to E-Class, next generation SUV. I think that's inherent with the business. But what you heard from Markus in terms of modularization concept, be it on software side or be it on hardware side, we can leverage throughout the entire portfolio of ICE and EVs. And this efficiency of scale will allow us to reduce, I mean, investment.
The efficiency Markus showed on the chart, if you follow that closely on the powertrain side, on the ICE variants compared to what was there in the past and what is going to be in the future is much more focused, as well as on the EV powertrain side is much more focused, and you can use it and scale it throughout the entire portfolio, be it from the entry into the core, even into the top end. That is a fundamental lever to bring the investments down on that journey to meet the profile I mentioned before. At the same time, obviously, we'll keep investing into the tech stack, as you heard, on MBUX, as well as on other technology bricks. Fixed cost. Didn't we say in 2020 that we would bring fixed cost down by 20% 2019 to 2025? Yes, we did say that.
So we achieved 19% by the end of 2024, as you heard earlier, I mean, that morning. Just bear in mind that the inflation rates, as per my stats or math in Europe and Germany, were more than 20% during that period, or call it 30%, I mean, worldwide. So I think it gives you an idea of the effort being made and accomplished during that period. But obviously, we'll not rest there and feel good with that. Now, we'll take it to next level. So we're going for the next 10% of fixed cost reduction. So you might wonder, I mean, how is that going to work? Well, what are the levers, I mean, over here? We will reduce the active workforce via attrition, but also via voluntary redundancies.
We have still, I think, significant outsourcing potentials, which are working upon in finance area, in HR, in general procurement, lots of other areas. We'll definitely streamline business functions. And you saw it, I mean, on Ola's slide that morning, and you might have heard about, I mean, such as bringing our mobility business closer to the marketing and sales teams, I mean, integrating them. Or the announcement we made some time ago on the divestment on our own retail business, I mean, in Germany. We're taking management positions. We're increasing the span of control. We're reducing, I mean, the layers, and we'll change team management to a more flexible approach. And we stop doing, I mean, non-essential activities. We standardize, we digitalize, and I think there's a great potential in terms of using much more gen AI throughout, I mean, the entire business.
Maybe, Christina, we're doing the next disclosure call with the support of that, and you have a robot in front of you. So let's come back to China shortly. We're definitely starting from a position of strength. What has been achieved over the last decade in terms of market position, I think, is outstanding. How does it look like for the top end in 2024 in China? We talk so much about it that sometimes, I mean, we forget what is the absolute, I mean, position. So clearly, we're holding more than 50% of the market share in the top end above RMB 1.5 million in China. Clearly, we're the number one position when it's above RMB 800,000. On the AMG side, we're number one in performance in this market. The S-Class, despite everything you read, you talk, is outselling the competition by the factor two to three.
And if you look on the chart, you will see that we have the highest MSRP among premium OEMs. What is not on the chart is that we have the lower discount among these premium OEMs. So the highest MSRP, the lower discount of all of them. And that just means that the brand still has incredible pricing power in the market. However, I don't want to stand here and be naive. We're fully conscious of the challenges we're facing in the market and the need to be competitive. But we're clearly geared to defend that top-end market position and to protect our profit pools in China. So you heard it in terms of what is the strategy? Focus on what makes a Mercedes a Mercedes.
That applies in particular, I would say, I mean, in China, where, I mean, the brand still has a very, very, I mean, strong position. It is important to return to the iconic and the status-driven design to push the dedicated China products such as the GLE long wheelbase, the S-Class upgrade, the EQS dedicated to the rear, but obviously also to be on cutting-edge technology forefront. Let me say a word maybe on the local production, on the JV, on the BBAC side. Also to put a bit of facts and figures here. Despite the contribution from BBAC coming down in 2024, as you could see earlier on the EBIT walk, I would like to share with you that the return on sales of that entity is a 15% return on sales. Isn't that damn healthy? What's our challenge? What's our target? What's our mission?
Obviously, it is, I mean, to right-size the GV, the BBAC, in such a way that it can retain double-digit margins also in the future, and for that very purpose, I mean, we launched jointly with our partner a very, very comprehensive cost reduction program. And what does it mean? It attacks material cost by more than 10%, deeper localization, efficiencies, technical efficiencies, renegotiation of contracts. It addresses as well, I mean, the variable production cost, and it also addresses, I mean, the fixed cost by more than 20% respectively, so a very, very comprehensive program, but there are also additional measures. I alluded to adjustment of industrial capacity, I mean, before. I would mention also that on the dealer side, jointly, we're looking at the network evolution to make it efficient and adapted, I mean, to the size, to the market, the demand.
The Geely localization offers cost opportunity, cost advantage in China, and will obviously expand the footprint also for the China fit products on the R&D side and capture opportunities there in terms of development cost. Now, let's switch gears in terms of what does it all mean for the financial framing. And I understand there were some bets out whether there's going to be a weather chart or an update of the weather chart or not. I don't know whether you call that a weather chart or an outlook. Frankly, I don't care. We feel that in an environment which is pretty demanding and volatile, probably putting out a weather chart doesn't make too much of a sense. But let's stop that debate. I would say let's just look on what it is. So here it is. I mean, it is a clear roadmap back to double-digit margin.
Important to note in there, and it's a reminder that I think we take in this respect, I mean, a prudent macro and market perspective, as I showed on the first chart of that deck here. I do believe it is fair to assume that the product firework is going to generate momentum on sales and revenues more towards 2027, as I emphasized before. You heard that we're very focused on narrowing the gap in terms of margin between ICE and EVs by hard cost work. Clearly, everything I said in terms of NLP, so Next Level Performance, when it comes to reduction of production cost, material cost, fixed cost, and investment down is built into that. And when I'm sure you're going to ask me that, so I preempt it.
When you're going to ask me, so what is the biggest lever when you come from 2024 to that double-digit in 2027? I can tell you it is the NLP side. It is what is in our hands in terms of driving cost and efficiency. I would like to remind you, obviously, what I said on the guidance, that any incremental tariffs are not included in these outlooks, as mentioned for the guidance. Also applies here for the other years to come. Margin is nice. Cash is a reality. You know that better than me. So what does all of that mean in terms of cash generation and return to you? Well, I think we have a little track record here on the chart. So between 2019 and 2024, we generated more than EUR 45 billion of cash flow industrial. We distributed around EUR 30 billion via divvy and share buyback.
You got on top of 65% of the Daimler Truck shares via the spin in 2021. And you've wrapped that up. That's a total TSR between 2019 and 2024 of 100%. Let me illustrate that with a little math here. Let's assume you bought two Daimler shares in 2019 at a share price of EUR 50. Make it simple. So you invested EUR 100 at the point in time. And let's assume you still hold the shares today, right? And let's assume you're still holding the one Daimler Truck share you got via the spin. And you count what you got as cash dividend. And obviously, the accretion effect from the share buyback helped as well. So if I do the math, I come up with EUR 200. So despite all of the difficulties in 2024 and in industry, isn't that interesting?
EUR 100 invested in 2019, EUR 200 today if you still hold it. I'm pretty sure keeping it is a good idea or doing even more. At the same time, the NIL went up from EUR 11 billion in 2019 to EUR 31 billion by the end of 2024, but well, so far, that is looking a bit into the mirror. Now, what does it mean in terms of looking forward? What does it mean in terms of the capital allocation and the capital allocation framework, I mean, moving forward? You can take for granted we are committed to shareholder returns. We're committed to shareholder returns as you expect them, but we're also committed to them as it is an expression of our own confidence into our future operational and financial performance.
That's why we will continue to use, I mean, the cash flow after dividend for share buyback, I mean, moving forward, at the same time retaining a very strong balance sheet. What's a concrete capital allocation proposal now, which we want to share here today? It is a dividend for 2024 of EUR 4.30 with a payout around 41% in line with the framework. We want to announce also, I mean, here today that we will continue our share buyback, I mean, activity. The Supervisory Board decided yesterday to launch a new buyback program of up to EUR 5 billion over two years, starting potentially in May 2025 as we need to seek the approval of the AGM for 10% authorization by a corporate law in May 2025.
That EUR 5 billion share buyback program is intended to be supported by the cash we will generate in 2025 and 2026 and the beginning of monetization of the Daimler Truck stake. At the same time, protecting a very healthy NIL level. A word on the Daimler Truck stake. You know the lockup expired by the end of the year. We see the potential for some monetization of the stake cautiously. We see that, I mean, the stock gained significant traction on the Daimler Truck side since the spin-off, more than 30%. You know that I do see there is further potential, I mean, in it. We clearly mentioned that we see that holding as non-strategic. And therefore, I think it's just a logical step that we will consider monetization of the stake over time in a market-friendly way.
These proceeds are embedded in the cash flow and the EUR 5 billion program. Again, important that we need to seek authorization from the AGM for doing that. I think it's time to wrap it up and maybe sum it up in terms of what are the key pillars of the equity story of that company. Why is Mercedes unique and stands out compared to others from your perspective? That ultimately remains your perspective, but I'd like to offer, I mean, our perspective. We do consider Mercedes is a unique brand of luxury and cutting-edge technology. It's the most valuable brand with iconic products. And that means it captures the hearts and not only the minds of customers. It makes them go irrational. The people at Mercedes are committed to excellence and innovation. Since the creation of the company, you could even say they inherited that from the founders.
The product evolution, the product firework we're talking about here today, I think is just taking it to another level. But with exactly that DNA. You see, I think, a very Swabian discipline at work when it comes to cost and investment, laying out the roadmap back to double-digit margin, continued cash generation, a solid balance sheet with EUR 30 billion, which provides a lot of flexibility and opportunities with a benchmark capital allocation framework, which we honor and are committed to with the announcement we're making here today. Obviously, our job is to deliver. The investment decision is yours. Thank you.
Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you very much, Ola, Markus, and Harald for your presentations. We will reconnect with our three board members for the Q&A session that's following right after. We will take a 10-minute break to 10:45 A.M. roughly to reconvene. Please remember, we will have a first Q&A for analysts and investors, and that's followed by the Q&A for the media.
Yeah, and all media representatives are, of course, invited to attend the analyst Q&A. So you can stay here in the room or in the working room. And then we have the media Q&A like five minutes after the end of the analyst Q&A, also here in the same room. And whoever is dialed in from the media side, we will then have like the usual procedure that you can register your questions digitally, and we will read them out here in the room. So that's it pretty much for the presentation part, right? You can now refresh yourself, and we are back here in 10 minutes.
Welcome back to our analyst and investor Q&A.
I'm very happy to have with me Ola Källenius, our CEO, Harald Wilhelm, CFO, and Markus Schäfer, CTO. Please bear with me. I will take you through the safe harbor wording for a minute before we start. I would like to remind everyone that presentation and Q&A are governed by the safe harbor wording that you find in our published documents. Please note that our presentations and comments 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. Now, just a few practical points. Please ask your questions in English.
As a matter of fairness, please limit it to two questions. Please state your name when I call you and the name of your institution, and then ask your questions. For representatives of the media, please understand we have the analyst and the investor Q&A first. Yours will follow straight after. To the investors and analysts following us online, you're welcome to send us questions to the email address you will see on the screen. We've also shared it this morning. Now, for the participants in the room, please raise your hand if you want to ask a question, and I will call you up. Once it's your turn, please unmute yourself, clicking the speaking button. Once you're finished, please also mute yourself again. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't have to ask you to raise your hand, so I see lots of hands here. I will start with you, Tim. Over to you.
Yeah, thank you very much. This works. Tech is amazing here, Ola. It's good. I have two questions, please. The first one will probably go to you, Ola. You said it's about distilling the DNA of the brand in many of the things that you're deciding to do. Can you help us distilling the essence of today? You left us with a lot of information. A bit we already knew. You made it sound like a very logical continuation of what we learned in Monaco three years ago, yet the world has totally changed. You're taking our capacity. You're reversing back from the BEV focus towards more ICE focus again. So you actually changed in quite a few things, which is pretty difficult, I assume.
I think most of us left Monaco thinking you want to do luxury and you want to do both. What are the two things you can leave us with today? And then secondly, Harald, perhaps more to you. We already had the discussion post-Monaco that we find it very difficult to judge how much you can control internally if you don't give us a reference number for things like fixed costs. Investment numbers we kind of know, right? But that sort of stuff. It's kind of the same today. I think most people would assume your assumption that pricing is stable sounds quite ambitious with everything that's going on in the world, or the more important it is for us to understand the cost side. Can you help us to drill down on that a little bit more?
Is there any net number that you want to leave us with that you want to achieve in terms of cost savings? Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, Tim. I'll start with asking your question. So whereas the market conditions are indeed different now and the landscape is different, and I would say we all agree that transformation is not a linear thing, and probably in many markets it's going to take longer, what are the two things that you need to take with you? In terms of the product portfolio, we said we wanted to elevate ourselves in the different segments that we operate in: top-end, core, and entry. So this product that we're launching now this year, I think, is the first proof point of that.
In the entry, narrowing the portfolio to the positions that we think are going to be most successful on a worldwide basis, elevating the substance of the product, but also the appearance of the product, and trying to gain a healthy margin development in that segment. At the same time, we said we want to grow the core. We had, let's say, a gap in the portfolio. The biggest volume position for BEVs in core is clearly the GLC segment and the C-Class segment. That is about to be filled next year. And we said we wanted to grow organically in core. And then we wanted to put more emphasis on the top-end.
If you remember the chart in my presentation with the number of models in the next three years, you could clearly see that the highest number of models is in the top-end, not only to defend. I think you said that also had to defend our position with this, which is strong there, but also try to build it and venture into new things like AMG.EA, where we want to kick off an electric chapter also in the performance segment in an authentic, incredible way. So from that point of view, even though the market conditions have shifted significantly, even though China is a different place now than it was maybe three or four years ago, I would say that we're staying the course.
If somebody would be looking at saying, well, you could sell more cars if you do a car that is smaller than this car, yes, we could, but would it really be profitable growth? We don't think so. With the brand that we have, the cost structure that comes together with that brand, honing that, I think we use the diamond as a honing that, we're largely staying the course. One thing has changed, even though we had the insurance policy built in. We thought some years ago that the progression towards EV on a worldwide basis would go faster. We had said we will be able to serve markets by the end of this decade fully electrically, where market conditions allow.
If you don't believe that market conditions will be dominant electric in 2030, 70%, 80%, or more, it would not make economic sense to just cut off your very healthy and profitable ICE business. So a little over a year ago, we made a decision to do a dual track to activate the insurance policy. You saw the new V8 yesterday at AMG. I mean, we never stopped readying the engines and transmission combinations for the next generation, but we're now adding the vehicles to it. So yes, that is a change, but it's a change that does not lead to disruption. It's not like we stopped and it's like, oh my goodness, let's dust off the room, Markus, and start again. It is happening in a flow. It has an impact on our investment profile.
But in spite of that, I think what Harald showed, you know, we're managing this in a sensible way. So we're staying the course, but if the world changes, you cannot be so stubborn that you're not willing to adapt. You have to adapt as well. And that's what we're doing on the BEV ICE dual track.
On your second question, Tim, well, may I say we give quite a lot of data points. You will understand that we're not giving the pricing objective for June 2025 on a given product. At the very least, we want to stay disciplined, which means the strategy in terms of value over volumes absolutely still applies. However, I mean, we'll be competitive as well. So where we deem appropriate, it means we can also strike. But this is case by case, market by market, product by product.
I think on this one, one cannot give an absolute reference. Definitely, the product momentum to come. We'll use a part of that momentum and the step up of the products also to step up competitiveness of the offering further. But altogether, therefore, I think the assumption to go for a stable pricing moving forward, if you take all of that into account, I think is a fair one. When it comes to absolute references on production cost, on material cost, I think it's a bit difficult. As you know, there's volume mix structure. So giving a number doesn't mean anything. But you see the percentage improvements, which we did, which we want to do moving forward, which I think are very ambitious in a pretty short period of time.
You did see in the bridge for 2024 already how much that yields in terms of year-on-year performance, EUR 1 billion industrial performance, underlying even higher, as I said, as you have one time inside. And for fixed cost and investment, actually, you have actual references on the investment side. Clearly, you did see EUR 12.1 billion for cars in R&D and PPE in 2024. So it goes up by EUR 1 billion, then it comes down in 2026, and it will be 10% below 2024 in 2027. And that means 20% below 2029. So I think you have the references here. And on the fixed cost, let me say, and I say it's going to be more than 10%. You cannot retrieve all of the fixed costs from the P&L statement, as a part is obviously in SG&A, a part is in COGS.
But let me say, if you achieve the incremental 10% by 2027, fixed cost will be at the edge of a single to double-digit billion number, which I think is quite a meaningful guide.
Patrick, you were very fast, so you go next.
Okay, perfect. Thank you and good morning. Thanks for your presentation. Two questions from my end. First one is regarding the growth you envisage in the top-end segment. There seems to be a significant increase in that bridge for 2027. And I'm curious to understand how the split between BEV and ICE would look like for that year within the top-end segment, and also how you think about it by region.
I just generally think we have a lot of evidence in the market that BEVs in the top-end segment are not an easy sell when it comes to residual values, when it comes to consumers that expect roaring V8 engines, etc. So I'm just trying to better understand how much optimism or aggressiveness you've baked into your TAF share growth driven by BEV. And my second question regarding Daimler Trucks. You had it on a slide, Harald. But if I look at the authorization, the EUR 5 billion share buybacks you're going to do or plan to do over the next 24 months, you would just max out that 10% authorization without any potential for returning even more in case of a Daimler Truck stake sale.
I'm wondering, does that mean we should think about another spin of Daimler Truck shares or a special dividend in case you sell down your Daimler Truck stake, or how would you go a bout it? Thank you.
I think I'll start with the first one. If I double-click on the chart with all the cars on it, and you could see that there were a lot of positions on the top-end, some of which I referred to. You get a major, major refresh of the S-Class and the equivalent Maybach next year. You get a major refresh of the GLS also next year. Here you have the main vehicles that carry the ICE side of that operation. You saw last night at AMG that maybe we're kind of plugging some holes.
The resurrection of the V8, the brand new flat crank V8, I mean, who is insane enough to do something like this at this day and age? Well, the AMG people are. And if you carefully looked at the chart that Michael showed yesterday, you could see that there were other ICE variants also in the AMG portfolio coming. So I would say on the ICE side, we're refreshing, renewing, and maybe tidying up the picture a bit. Now, to your question on the BEVs. Yes, we're investing into this AMG.EA architecture. I remember when we went to our test track down in Immendingen in the fall, and it was the first real drive. I had driven the AMG.EA early prototypes up in the north of Sweden on ICE, but it's not the same thing.
I drove this thing and I went like, holy shit, this, sorry for the expression, this is what performance should feel like. The guy said even programmed, and we will most likely launch that. They had even programmed what they called a V8 mode. I turned on the V8 mode, and it sounded like a V8 on the inside, on the outside, and software emulated the gear shifts. Good job there of the team, even if you don't need it, technically speaking, on an electric car. I was thinking to myself, this is insane performance. It's proprietary technology. When do we break the psychological barrier of the customer saying, wow, this is so good, I desire this and I want it? That is the attempt that we're going to make.
But even the AMG version of this here, 400 kW+ , with those same features and everything, they're going to be a blast to drive. So we will do our utmost to change the perception or maybe create the perception of a valuable performance electric vehicle as well. Is there some uncertainty? Sure, there is some uncertainty, but the technological package will be the real deal. And that is part of the growth. And I did not take out my yardstick here to measure exactly on the graph, but I think we were a little bit more cautious on what that absolute number is going to be like in 2027 than we thought some years ago when the market conditions were different. So we were now at 280-ish, and I think it's reasonable to believe that we can climb above the 300 again and then build upon that.
With regard to your second question, I think there are two elements to answer. I mean, number one is a more technical. As by corporate law, you know it. I mean, you can only seek a 10% authorization from the AGM. So given the market cap, well, this is maybe slightly above EUR 5 billion, but it is not 10 or is not 8. It would be different. I mean, if you would have a different view. But I mean, as of today, it is what it is. So therefore, I mean, the authorization is a precondition. And obviously, what we proposed, I mean, to the supervisory board and what got approved needs to be in sync with that authorization. That's why it is an envelope, also technically in order of EUR 5 billion supported by cash flow and monetization of the Daimler Truck stake.
To your second question, I mean, could we expect something else on the DT stake? No, we checked it carefully from a legal point of view. There is no precedent of a minority spin in corporate law. It would be a pretty complex operation with lots of uncertainty. It would require lots of approvals. It would also constitute probably tax risk or tax burden for many of the investors, which you don't want to see. And frankly, I think we're not in a hurry here. I always said it. It's a great performance evolution of DT over time. There's more potential to come. So careful, market-friendly monetization, I mean, over time. And you know what the liquidity can absorb. I mean, you know that better than me.
I think this is the way to go, and that will support, I mean, the cash generation in 2024, 2025, and will use EUR 5 billion of that to buy back shares. I mean, that's what it is.
George, over to you.
Great. Thank you for taking my questions. George Galliers from Goldman Sachs. The first question I wanted to start with is, what do you think is the benchmark today in China for a premium car player with respect to level two ADAS? Is it point-to-point driving, operating 98% of the time with minimal need for the driver to intervene? Is it lower than that? And how is the CLA going to perform relative to that benchmark? The second question I had was just with respect to the net liquidity. EUR 30 billion plus is a very big number. Why is that required?
Some of your global peers are saying they need effectively close to zero. I think in the past, Daimler talked about a number of EUR 10 billion when you were a larger company with trucks. Is this level of liquidity required because there might be M&A you have to pursue from a technology perspective? Is it required because the earnings in China could be red at some point? Is it required because maybe if Europe keeps the 2035 ban on internal combustion engines, we'll go into a period of very low volume in Europe? I think the market really wants to understand why that security blanket is needed.
Markus, you want to start?
Yeah, I think you're hitting the point. I think one of the great customer benefits that customers enjoy in China right now is assisted driving and especially what we call Level 2++ driving.
This is really an additional help and assistance to the customer. The clear goal we have to be at benchmark levels with this car, with this AI, with the supercomputer in the car, with the sensors that we have in the car, with the compute algorithm to hit this benchmark level point-to-point driving in very, very dense urban traffic. The key of the system was developed, especially in busy, busy China streets. That's exactly what we're targeting. What are we doing in terms of even topping the competition there is reducing the hardware set there. We are driving a high-definition mapless. We're not using a high-definition map. Through development with our algorithms, we were able also to delete the LiDAR in the car. We are able to perform on the same level as benchmark in China with less hardware.
Plus, and we should elaborate in another workshop what we call functional safety. So we have a long, long history of developing ADAS system. 25 years, we're working on that in-house, especially when it comes to functional safety, which is a key requirement from our point of view there to put you in a safe space there. I think also we're going to define a benchmark when it comes to functional safety. Third point is cooperative steering. Typically, when you interfere in the system in China and start to move the steering wheel, then you kick out the system. And we have a long tradition that you can do both at the same time. And this gives you even additional feel of safety and security and that you are in control if you want to be.
I think we're adding additional flavor here, defining really, really top when it comes to assisted driving, especially in China, but also in the U.S. and Europe. As you know, it's not allowed yet, but you will drive this car this afternoon even here in Germany, in Sindelfingen. So you will get the experience in Sindelfingen. So we are able to scale the system also globally if legally and regulatorily allowed.
And George, to your question on the NIL. I agree with you. EUR 30 billion is a very comfortable number. But is there any hidden agenda behind the EUR 30 billion in terms of retaining them? Clearly, no. How to illustrate that? Well, I mean, if we would see the risk of China basically turning into red, I think I wouldn't stand here and talk about the objective to retain BBAC in double-digit territory.
If we would see the risk of volume collapsing globally as a function of market, ICE, whatever, I think we would not stand here and give a margin target for 2027 as we did. And if we would have any material M&A in mind, I think we would not stand here and say that we intend to generate free cash flow from the organic business and then use a DT stake to do the EUR 5 billion share buyback. It would be just totally inconsistent, wouldn't it be? So yes, it is a very healthy balance sheet. I think it's good to have it. But I think there is at the same time a very generous return policy to shareholders, as demonstrated I think earlier today with my little math in terms of total shareholder return of 100% or the EUR 100-EUR 200 example.
And I think with EUR 5 billion and the DVO for EUR 30, you see the commitment to continue in that direction.
José.
Thank you very much. José from JPMorgan, thank you for the presentation. A couple of questions. I was very impressed with the China margin. So I would love to hear a little bit more around the material cost and the fixed cost initiatives in the region to sustain the margin in the double-digit level. Is there also maybe tactically an option to maybe take down some of the capacity in the region? I think you mentioned on the slides optionality. So how do we think about that maybe in 2025 and 2026?
And then second, on the sale of the Daimler Truck stake, do you have any KPIs, any margins you would like to see, any elements you would like to see from Daimler Truck to maybe judge a little bit better the timing of the sale? Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, José. Maybe very quickly on the DT stake, I think we said everything which has to be said on the subject matter. So we intend, we would consider monetization in the doses in the way I described it before and do that in a market-friendly manner. But I think any other indication, I think, no. Let's see as we go along. We have two years as part of the SBB program, as obviously that is going hand in hand. So nothing to be added, I think, in this respect.
On the China margin, first, let me say, yeah, 15% is a good departure point, but it's a competitive environment. You saw all of the initiatives to protect that moving forward. But I would say if we're able to retain the BBAC at a healthy margin level in this super competitive environment with having the right products in the market, adjusting the cost base down, grabbing into the opportunities also for more local sourcing, this is the fitness check, which then I think makes BBAC super robust and maybe is even an opportunity to take some of that opportunities over to the rest of the world. And I would also say maybe I'm talking about BBAC 15% here today, 2024. This is BBAC result only.
I think you all know by heart that we're doing supply business, which has a decent margin, and there are other profit pools on top of it. So the entirety, I think, is good and demonstrated in a super competitive environment in 2024 that it is resilient, and we will make it even more resilient moving forward, jointly with a partner, jointly with BAIC, absolutely determined. Also, I think pretty clear is that they have a joint interest with us to make BBAC successful in the future in terms of its products, but also in terms of its bottom line.
But maybe also to add partnerships. I mean, we were proving with our four-cylinder engine to have a local development of components there with local specification, with local partners could take us to cost levels that we have not seen before. So, following the source was the typical approach in the, actually, in the present, but doing more localization with local partners there. This is the key focus right now of the R&D and procurement team in China and elaborating on further partnerships also when it comes to components.
Henning.
Yeah, thank you very much. First one, perhaps for Harald to come back to the pricing. I appreciate you don't want to give us price points for 2026, but I just wanted to check with you if you agree that, well, I think you gave a very reasonable guide overall, right, for 2025. Would you agree that within that pricing is perhaps the most volatile or uncertain assumption and indeed whether it's stable or not stable could make the difference between the eight and the six? Would you agree with that?
I think in previous calls, you've gone through the elements of pricing, list price, discounts, dealer compensation, residual values. If you could touch on that and how you see that, the stability element. The second question is also a little bit geared to the 2027 and maybe to bring in Markus again. On the slide, you had the 30% xEV penetration. If we assume the increment comes from BEVs is double of what it is today, how do we think about that in terms of margin parity? Because if you double the EVs, you go to 20% EV alone while you have the 10% margin ambition, does that necessitate getting close to parity? Is that an assumption that's baked in? Thank you.
Yeah, on the pricing, I think it's fair to say, as you do, that probably is one of the most volatile assumptions in any outlook at this juncture. We have a determination to be disciplined in this respect, but we are not the only one in town, right? So it also depends, obviously, what's happening in other places by other people. So we do consider some volatility in any outlook, obviously, but considering either a massive step up or a massive step down, where do you put the line? But the backbone is disciplined approach and product, product, product, product is at the end. I think the product makes the pricing and nothing else. On the margin side, or basically, we're bringing the cost of the EV down by more than 15%. We do not assume price premium on the EV over the ICE.
That means that we can narrow the gap, but I say it also loud and clear, any statement that you can close the gap, we find that a difficult statement and we don't want to promise things you cannot do. So all of the effort is on getting the right product out and getting the cost down by more than 15%, the variable cost of the product. Thereby, the margin gap will narrow and the higher for longer ICE obviously builds a nice bridge to absorb that moving forward.
Stephen.
Stephen, yeah.
Marvelous of technology.
Thank you. Of the technology. Thank you very much. Could I ask about the CLA again? First of all, maybe a simpler one. You're saying the public introduction of the vehicle will be in a month's time. Are you going to open the order book at that time as well?
When will the first customer deliveries start for this vehicle? If you could give maybe by geography as well. Secondly, you mentioned about that you understand that BEVs cannot command a premium to the ICE vehicles. When this vehicle was first introduced to us, I think we saw this in May 2022. I think the thinking afterwards was that it would have a, with all the technologies, would command a premium. Now, you've mentioned the 15% reduction in BEV costs that are coming in with this, but that would have probably been baked in already into some of your thinking. Could you describe some of the other steps you've taken to bring the cost of this vehicle down in order to reach the sort of the new realities of how you can price this in today's market? Thank you.
I start with the timing. We're following our normal procedure here. We'll have what we call the world premiere in about four weeks' time, which will be at a big event in Europe inviting the world to look at the car. Then we take the camouflage off. We show all the details of the technology. We have teased a lot of the things today. Then usually some weeks after that, we have what we call a sales release. So that happens later in the spring on the way towards early summer. Then you can actually go in and order. We start in Europe first. The production of this vehicle starts in our plant here in Rastatt. Then we kick off production in the fall in China. You usually have this gap four, five, six months roughly historically.
And we also start production in the summer, then late summer for the United States, but then we have the shipping. So China and the United States then come in the fall, and it's kind of then the rest of the world. So that's how it's going to unfold.
On the margin side, let's not confuse things, please. So let me clarify. So when you say we do not assume price premium of an EV over an ICE product, it means this EV product should have roughly similar pricing than the respective main combustion ICE sibling of that product, right? When we say the margin gap between or the margin improvement with a 15% cost down we're doing, we're comparing with predecessor product. So which means if you compare, we don't have predecessor CLAs, but let me take a GLA.
A future GLA electric to be compared with an EQA today will have a definitely better margin thanks to the cost work we're talking about. Please let's separate the two.
Maybe one thing to mention, I think Markus actually mentioned it. Markus and his team, they've done a sensational job on the combustion one. On the combustion side, our powertrain, I would say by our standards, cost-wise is very competitive. Super competitive.
Okay, Anthony, over to you.
Yes, thank you. Three questions on my side. The first is on CO2 compliance. Thanks for providing the kind of indication of the impact on the cars business. On the Vans business, could you just remind us what would be the impact? I just noted it would be higher.
And then could you also break down a little bit how that splits between potential mixed dilution and also any kind of costs that you would pay out to your pooling partner? And then lastly, on this kind of topic, if we were to get some relief on the regulation front from the EU, maybe in a couple of weeks, how would that impact your estimate for this compliance cost in 2025? Then my second question is on China. Just wondering how, considering what we're seeing, the very high levels of price discounting in that market, how you're balancing value and volume. Are you targeting a specific market share or defending a market share in China? And then the last question is on investments. Could you maybe talk us a bit about ICE investments for the year to come?
Again, considering that the lifetime basically of the ICE has likely been extended with what we've seen in the market over the last couple of months and years. Thank you.
Maybe quickly, I get started on the CO2 and you pick up on the regulatory and maybe the partner framework, and I mentioned that the number on the car side is a low three-digit number in the walk from 2024 to 2025. Maybe let me do it in the following way. It's a very low three-digit number which sits in there, and the absolute number which sits in the van bridge year- over-y ear is maybe a bit less than double of that amount which sits on the car side for the reasons all I explained before, given the higher CO2 footprint obviously of a van vehicle compared to a passenger car vehicle.
I hope that it explains number one on the car side, but number two, that actually also the walk on the margin from 2024 to 2025, a quite significant chunk of the margin deterioration or dilution still holding at a nice 10%-12%, however, is coming from that CO2 impact in 2025.
On the regulatory side, at the kickoff dialogue, the so-called Strategic Automotive Industry Dialogue at the end of January, pretty much every single industry representative at that meeting, and certainly the Auto Industry Association that I happen to lead this year, as well as the Supplier Association, said loud and clear, five or six years ago when the targets were set, certain assumptions were made. It's very clear that in terms of natural demand in the market, proliferation of charging infrastructure, etc., some of those assumptions have not come to fruition.
It is wholly reasonable from a regulatory point of view to review this and think about some relief, especially in the context of what's going on in the global economy. You have two other strong economic regions, North America, United States, and China that are not taking money away from the Auto industry, actually doing the other way around. They are putting money into the Auto industry. Is it the most rational thing for Europe right now to rigidly stick to that or have some flexibility and pragmatism in mind? That's what we're advocating for. Whether or not the EU Commission will decide to change 2025, that is unknown. I don't think it would be serious to put a number to it. We have just said it is a sensible thing to do.
If they do do it, though, the way we have structured our agreements is we can flex. So indeed, if they create relief, we would have some relief and we'll see what happens. Maybe on the market share for every single car, you look at your relative market share, you look at your relative pricing. It should come as no surprise that we have done the same calculation for this car in China. So we have a hypothesis. But you said it, Harald, we're not alone in the market and the market is a dynamic place. So you have to be able to calibrate that in your mind as you get closer to market introduction. But of course, we have a hypothesis. We're not going to name individual volume targets on individual vehicles here. We never have. But that is in place and it's a balanced approach.
Value over volume is our general philosophy, but it's not no volume. So it is also volume in a market that we have discussed is highly competitive.
The investment profile, I think we touched base on that one. Clearly, what you saw on product portfolio and on component evolution serves an ICE portfolio very well far into the 30s. The investments needed for that on vehicle side, on component side, on software side are embedded in the investment plan we laid out here today. How can it work? However, then with an investment coming down, you heard the streamlining of the drivetrain components on the ICE side, and I think largely accomplished as they meet Euro 7 targets. You need to be there anyhow. The investments are largely behind us. We can really leverage that well into the future.
And many other components, not ICE related, but EV and ICE, MBUX, I think is the most prominent example. Obviously, can be leveraged. So what's left, so to say, on a pure ICE platform is not nothing, but obviously is a much lower effort which is needed to get the competitive products into the 30s. And all of that is embedded in the investment plan.
Okay, I see some red flashes on the screen. So I think we're running out of time for everyone in the room. Thank you so much for asking your questions. Of course, thank you to you also for answering all of the questions and for everyone joining us online. We will now take a quick break and take a few minutes until the media Q&A will continue. So for everyone.