Daimler Truck CEO warns EU CO2 rules could wipe out truck unit's profit as electric uptake stalls

The regulatory gap

Heavy-duty vehicles account for more than 25% of road transport greenhouse gas emissions in the EU and over 6% of total emissions, according to the European Commission. The EU 2030 target requires a 43% cut in CO2 emissions from new trucks compared with 2019 levels. To meet that, Karin Rådström calculates about 35% of all newly registered heavy trucks in Europe in 2030 must be battery-electric or hydrogen-powered. In 2025, just 2% of heavy trucks sold were electric. The gap, she said, is a really major challenge.

If the CO2 regulation remains unchanged, Europe is gambling away the competitiveness of its commercial vehicle industry.

Rådström, who also chairs the Commercial Vehicle Board of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), gave the interview in Berlin. She said she is not sure politicians have grasped the urgency.

Profit at risk

For each percentage point by which Daimler Truck misses the CO2 target, the company would pay about 120 million euros. A ten-percentage-point shortfall would eliminate the entire operating profit of the Mercedes-Benz Trucks segment, Rådström warned.

If we miss the targets by ten percentage points, for example, we will make practically no money with the Mercedes-Benz Trucks segment.

The unit posted an operating profit of 698 million euros in 2025, down from 922 million in 2024, on roughly 20 billion euros in revenue in each year. The penalty structure, combined with stagnant e-truck adoption, means the industrial base is directly at risk, she argued.

Infrastructure and cost hurdles

The biggest obstacle, Rådström said, is not the vehicles themselves but the charging network.

The biggest problem remains infrastructure and charging.

Even customers willing to switch to electric are unsure they will be able to recharge along their routes. A second hurdle is reaching cost parity with diesel trucks. Because diesel remains relatively cheap as an energy source, customers who operate on very thin margins see electric trucks as an expensive experiment.

Diesel is comparatively not an expensive energy source.

In most cases, diesel still makes economic sense for the buyer, she noted.

Call for a reality check

Rådström is demanding a review of the EU CO2 regulation that ties targets to the availability of infrastructure and forces a faster build-out of charging points.

We demand a review of the CO2 regulation. This must be a reality check.

She said it is still too early to say the targets must change, but with the sluggish pace of infrastructure rollout and the reluctance of key EU member states to introduce CO2-based toll differentiation for trucks, it is clear the industry will need more time to reach the 2030 goals. The warning, delivered on 12 July 2026 by the Dax-listed group from Leinfelden-Echterdingen near Stuttgart, puts pressure on Brussels just as the countdown begins.