In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen - HIGHLIGHTS: Karin Rådström - CEO of Daimler Truck

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

We've curated a special 10-minute version of the podcast for those in a hurry.   Here you can listen to the full episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/no/podcast/daimler-truck-ceo-electric-transition-autonomous-vehicles/id1614211565?i=1000725819165&l=nbHow do you transform a 100-year-old trucking giant into a software-driven, zero-emission company? Karin Rådström, CEO of Daimler Truck, joins Nicolai Tangen to discuss the massive changes reshaping the trucking industry. They explore the shift from diesel to electric and hydrogen power, the development of autonomous vehicles, and the cultural transformation needed to accelerate innovation in a traditional German engineering company. Karin also opens up about her leadership philosophy of "tough love," her background as a Swedish national rowing champion, and what it's like being the first woman to lead a major truck manufacturer. With 105,000 employees worldwide, Daimler Truck is steering toward a sustainable future. Tune in for an inspiring conversation!In Good Company is hosted by Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management. New full episodes every Wednesday, and don't miss our Highlight episodes every Friday.  The production team for this episode includes Isabelle Karlsson and PLAN-B's Niklas Figenschau Johansen, Sebastian Langvik-Hansen and Pål Huuse. Background research was conducted by David Høysæter. Watch the episode on YouTube: Norges Bank Investment Management - YouTubeWant to learn more about the fund? The fund | Norges Bank Investment Management (nbim.no)Follow Nicolai Tangen on LinkedIn: Nicolai Tangen | LinkedInFollow NBIM on LinkedIn: Norges Bank Investment Management: Administrator for bedriftsside | LinkedInFollow NBIM on Instagram: Explore Norges Bank Investment Management on Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, everybody. Tune in to this short version of the podcast, which we do every Friday. For the long version, tune in on Wednesdays. So today we are in very good company with Karin Rolström, the CEO and president of Daimlo Truck, which is the largest commercial vehicle producer in the world. Karin has recently been named Sweden's most important businesswoman and Daimler Truck. And at Daimler Truck, she is driving the conversion of legacy diesel champion into a future ready mobility powerhouse. now Colin you combine engineering background your scania background with a background in elite sport so a warm welcome thank you so now you and I we are going into a truck okay you are sitting in the in the driving seat I'm sitting next to you and now you're going to tell me what what makes a good truck what do you what do you look for well the cab is like the driver's living room yeah so that's what I look for basically is it practical is their storage space, how's the bed, of course. Also, how do you interact with the truck?

Yeah, but I honestly, I was thinking it didn't really change so much with all the new trends with electrification, digitalization. It's still a living room and a working office. So when people buy a truck, what are the decisive elements? What is it that make you win the purchase? Well, I think it depends who, which perspective you take. So now we started with like the driver perspective, which is the cab and the living space, but of course also that the truck does the job. And I think they're still kind of old school. So they want to go faster up the hill than their colleague with the other brand. So that's still important. But then of course, usually the people deciding which brand to buy are the owners and they look for whatever

truck will give them the best cost of operation because they're running a business so why do you have so many brands you go you know a freight liner Mercedes Fuso Western Star they're easier just to have one yeah we have we have even more actually but it comes from history and and they all stand for different things for the customers, I would say. So if I give an example on the coach side, we have CETRA, which is actually positioned higher than Mercedes-Benz. And that's something we acquired now many years ago. So that has a higher brand value than Mercedes for a coach customer. And why would you take that away? Or Western Star in the US, that's a super strong brand for like heavy duty timber construction so it makes sense to to keep most brands and then of

course sometimes we buy stuff where we might consider changing the brand too another thing is of course the decarbonization kind of dilemma you just how are you going to get to zero emission yeah it's a good question so we have developed electric trucks So we basically can offer electric trucks in almost all use cases. In the US, we see environmental legislation kind of rolled back. So we believe it will just slow down significantly now. And it will probably take to beyond 2030 before we see it picking up again. While in Europe, we have very tough legislation that pushes electrification.

I think the challenge there is that for our customer to transition from diesel to electric, there needs to be three things in place. And we usually say it's like an equation. So you need to have the truck. And that's obviously we have one available. So do our competitors. You need to have TCO. So cost of operations needs to be competitive.

and there it starts to get there, I would say, in some use cases, especially if you drive longer distances, because the truck is always going to be more expensive to buy electric than a diesel, but then the running cost is lower. And we also see, like in Germany we have the road toll system, the Maut, which has an advantage for electric trucks, which is around 30 cents per kilometer. So it's like the cost of operations starts to be comparable. And then the third part of the equation is the infrastructure to be able to charge in the depot or along the route.

And I believe that's the most difficult challenge to solve. And then maybe coming back to where we started, as you know, if you have an equation and one part is zero, nothing happens. So where we really need to see more initiatives. and more speed is on the infrastructure side. So how do you cope with this situation where Europe is, you know, full speed ahead and the US is kind of pressing on the brake, you know? Yeah, well, there were some projects that we planned to have as global projects,

like battery platforms and stuff, where we are now looking, like can we do more with partners, can we de-risk to buy for a longer time? time things that we were planning to develop ourselves. So I think that's kind of stepwise looking at because there's also in Europe uncertainty how quickly it's going to scale. And like in everything we do, we try to think of the low volume scenario and the high volume scenario. So as an example, when we were integrating the electric trucks into the production line, we do it on the same line as where we're producing the diesel. And that way we can really balance depending on how the demand develops. What are your most important leadership principles? Someone who worked for me

some years ago, she described it quite well, tough love, she said. And I thought that was good because I'm quite demanding. It's maybe one of the things I still need to work on. Like I'm never really, it's not like I'm unhappy, but I always want to take it to the next level. So we reached like a milestone. I'm already thinking about the next one. And I could probably get better at showing appreciation, but I'm tough. So always pushing forward. But hopefully I do it in a way that I also show that I care about the people. And I want them to grow and I try to push them a little it to do things they didn't dare to do, take decisions as we talked about, making them really accountable. So that's the one part. And then I rely a lot on the team, probably more

than other CEOs. I spend a lot of time consciously building the team, also getting to know each other, maybe not, we don't have to be privately, you know, best friends, but personally, really understanding the driving forces and getting to the level where you can be vulnerable with each other and kind of get power from the team. So that's important for me. If we were to look at those two things, given that you have been on the national rowing team in Sweden for several years and rowing in world championships and so on. The first thing about setting new goals and pushing to new standards and so on.

I'm sorry, this is a leading question, but I'm sorry, let me just rephrase it. How do you think your background in sports has influenced your leadership principles? If you do the first one, if you do the first one first, setting your goals and that kind of thing. It's pretty obvious. So I think that's where I learned it. And it's like, that's what professional sports is all about. It's like about constantly pushing yourself to the next level. and for me it was like I never thought I would at first my dream was to win a Swedish

championships and then I reached that very quickly my brain is recalibrating I want to make the national team and then I want to row in the World Cup and stuff so I think that's that's just how I work and I think it's also a prerequisite to get there and in the day to day it's even more concrete because it's like, you know, you do something brutal, like the worst thing as a rower, I think, is intervals on the rowing machine because it's very digital. So it tells you exactly. So I would do a really hard workout. And by the end, you know, you're falling off the machine, lying on the floor, basically. And you know exactly how you perform. And then you go back next week. And you can actually do it a little bit better.

And I think that's, so that comes from there. And that, I think, made me, that's also what makes it fun. You can always step by step, also in Daimlertrakna, we do small things. And then when you zoom out over time, you see we're really moving.