戴姆勒卡车CEO称多数客户仍能转嫁创纪录柴油成本、订单暂未受明显冲击，但警告不确定性与欧盟罚款风险

Record diesel prices are squeezing trucking companies in the US and Europe, though many of Daimler Truck Holding AG’s customers can still pass the additional fuel costs on to their own clients, Chief Executive Officer Karin Rådström said.

The majority of customers “have floaters in their contracts with their customers, which means that they are able to offset the higher diesel price,” Rådström told journalists at the IAA Transportation in Hanover. The bigger problem can be timing, because operators often have to pay for the fuel before being reimbursed, according to the executive.

US diesel prices pushed to another record high on Monday after surpassing $6 a gallon last week for the first time as disruptions to global oil and fuel supplies tighten the market. Since the start of the hostilities in the Middle East, prices have risen more than 60%. The impact can ripple through the wider economy, with trucks carrying more than 70% of US domestic freight by weight, transporting everything from food to construction materials.

North America is Daimler Truck’s biggest market, selling almost half the group’s vehicles in the region across its Freightliner and Western Star brands.

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Rådström said fuel prices haven’t yet had a noticeable impact in orders, though the wider uncertainty “obviously isn’t good for business,” she said. While high fuel prices could weigh on truck demand, they may also strengthen the case for switching to battery-electric vehicles, according to Achim Puchert, who heads the Mercedes-Benz Trucks business.

The reaction to higher fuel prices is more immediate among passenger-car buyers, according to Stellantis NV’s Europe head Emanuele Cappellano.

“For sure there is a reaction, I mean once you see the oil price growing it immediately reflected some kind of reaction in the market,” Cappellano told journalists. Fleet operators tend to respond more slowly, however, and may delay replacing vehicles rather than immediately switching technologies.

“What we see is that sometimes they prefer slowing down the renewal of the fleet instead of having risk of buying full-electric commercial vehicle.”

Both companies said the biggest obstacle to wider adoption of electric trucks remains a lack of charging infrastructure. They also called for changes to European Union rules that impose penalties on manufacturers that miss emissions targets, saying the industry is unlikely to reach a goal of 35% of newly registered trucks being electric by 2030. Electric trucks currently make up 2% of newly registered vehicles.

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