Daimler cut its 2019 earnings after lifting provisions for issues related to its diesel vehicles by hundreds of millions of euros.
Group earnings before interest and tax this year are now expected to be at last year’s level, the carmaker said, against a previous estimate for a slight increase. Earnings will be affected in the second quarter, it said.
The revision is related to an expected increase in expenses linked to “various ongoing governmental proceedings and measures” with regard to Mercedes-Benz diesel vehicles, the company said.
It now sees a return between minus 2% and minus 4%, below its previous forecast of a return on sales of 0% to 2%.
On Monday, car executives are due to meet with government officials and experts at the chancellery in Berlin to talk about the future of the car industry.
Daimler is one of a number of German automakers massively expanding in electric vehicles as European regulators clamp down on toxic diesel emissions.
German auto giant Daimler has been ordered to recall a further 60,000 diesel cars believed to have been equipped with emissions-cheating software, the mass-circulation daily Bild reported on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the German Federal Motor Transport Authority or KBA already ordered Daimler last year to recall 700,000 diesel vehicles worldwide, including 280,000 in Germany, because of software that lowered the amount of dangerous particles their engines emitted during testing.
That recall — which Daimler is appealing — covered a range of different models, including its Vito, C-Class, V-Class and GLC cars.
But now the KBA has told the carmaker to recall its Mercedes-Benz GLK 220 CDI models built between 2012 and 2015, Bild reported.
Contacted by AFP, a company spokesman confirmed the information.
“An investigation has been under way since April,” he said.
The so-called “Dieselgate” scandal erupted in Germany in 2015 when Europe’s biggest carmaker Volkswagen admitted to installing so-called “defeat devices” in 11 million vehicles worldwide that allowed them to cheat emissions testing.
