Car companies cannot change corporate culture “like a pair of sneakers” – commentary

Daimler AG CEO Dieter Zetsche likes to dress up “like the guy from next door”. He has changed his outfit from business attire to sneakers and washed-out jeans in recent years, but even with this makeover “he remains the highly paid head of a listed company that made billions in profits again last year,” Thomas Fromm writes in a commentary for the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “It’s a bit like with the cars they’re selling,” Fromm says: Daimler talks a lot about its “big e-car attack,” but in reality the company sells more and more highly-emitting SUVs every year. The same goes for competitor Volkswagen, which “would love to talk about autonomous cars and smart traffic solution,” but instead has to explain why it tested diesel emissions on monkeys, he writes. “A new company culture cannot be put on like a pair of colourful sneakers,” and recent revelations that Daimler could be a lot more involved in the dieselgate emissions scandal is proof of this, Fromm says. 

Read the commentary in German here.