Munich - The 262-year-old former conglomerate MAN is now only a commercial vehicle manufacturer and part of Traton and thus the VW Group.
The switch to electromobility will change the company and have serious effects on Munich as a location.
We spoke to MAN boss Andreas Tostmann about current challenges.
From your office you can see the new paint shop at the MAN plant. It was a symbol that the plant was being modernized so that it was future-proof. Then came impacts, such as Corona, and now a downsizing. How is it going?
At Corona, everyone knows what kind of impact it has on our industry.
The year 2021 went very well in the first half of the year.
We can see that our realignment is beginning to bear fruit.
Unfortunately, the third quarter was more difficult.
Problematic issues are material availability and semiconductor shortages.
This affects the entire vehicle industry.
That also takes some of the tailwind we had in the first half of the year.
Parts and materials are missing and the prices are high. How concerned are you?
The topic affects the entire industry.
We are very well positioned within Traton, thanks to the alliance with Scania and Navistar, and also in close collaboration with Volkswagen, because the availability of materials is managed throughout the group.
Nevertheless, we also had to reduce production.
We could actually generate more sales.
For years the problem was a lack of demand, now there is a lack of supply.
Yes, unfortunately we are assuming that sales in the second half of the year will probably be lower than planned.
How long are the waiting times for customers?
This is difficult to answer across the board due to the large number of variants.
Our delivery dates and delivery commitments for certain models go into the spring of next year.
Do you have short-time working at the moment?
Short-time working was generally applied for for the whole of 2021 and at all MAN Truck & Bus locations in Germany.
We are in the process of controlling very flexibly, depending on availability.
Our procurement team is doing an excellent job together with the logisticians.
But the fact is that we cannot produce completely.
How would you describe that?
We do it so that individual shifts are canceled, but sometimes a whole day.
But we avoid cutting production completely.
How long do you think the bottleneck will last?
There are different forecasts.
However, we assume that we will have to deal with the problem in the next year as well,
In one submarket, demand is still poor. These are the buses. What's going on?
You have to differentiate.
The city bus is running well.
Our Lion's City E electric bus, in particular, has been very well received in the market.
We are pleased that we were able to hand over e-buses to some cities such as Nuremberg, Hamburg, Zurich and Copenhagen in the past few months.
But on the other hand, the coach market is affected by the problems in the tourism industry, so that the pre-Corona level has not yet been reached again.
The coach market is still the lower-volume segment.
You mentioned the electric bus. How's electrification going?
The electrification of urban public transport will increase very quickly because cities are relying on CO2-free drives.
In 2025, half of our new buses will have an alternative drive.
On the truck side, we have the first product on offer, and in the van segment we also offer a powerful vehicle with eTGE.
Here too, electrification is increasing primarily in distribution and regional transport.
We are primarily assuming battery-electric products.
By 2030, around 60 percent of all new MAN distribution trucks will be equipped with zero-emission drives.
In long-distance transport it will then be around 40 percent.
Is urban traffic a pioneer here too?
Battery electric drives are easy to imagine in municipal vehicles, but they will also work over the long haul.
If you take into account the driving times of the driver, you arrive at a necessary range of around 350 kilometers until the driving time interrupts the journey.
With a range of up to 400 kilometers when the electric long-distance truck was introduced, we are well positioned in the truck sector.
This will get even better with increasing battery technology.
We can imagine ranges of up to 1000 kilometers with one intermediate charge.
That goes far beyond the daily mileage of a driver.
The bottleneck seems to be the availability of charging options
.
We need charging stations that are designed for charging commercial vehicles, and a power grid that has the necessary renewable energy capacity, especially on motorways, federal highways and in urban areas with a high level of attractiveness.
This requires the provision of the necessary amounts of electricity at economical prices.
You have to think Europe-wide here, aren't there countries that do not have the opportunity to provide the appropriate infrastructure quickly?
I expect faster expansion on the north-south logistics axis and from central to south-west Europe than in the direction of Eastern Europe.
And we as industry are also making a contribution: In July, Traton, Daimler Truck and the Volvo Group signed a letter of intent to set up and operate a public high-performance charging network for battery-electric, heavy-duty long-distance trucks and coaches in Europe.
Your focus is on battery electric vehicles. Are there alternatives?
For certain applications, in structurally weak regions or on particularly long journeys, the fuel cell or hybrid drive types are also an option.
Battery technology for cars and commercial vehicles does not differ that much. Is the technology of both areas moving closer together in the VW group?
We look very closely at what our colleagues in the car division are doing.
And it is important to establish partnerships - also beyond Traton.
Regarding Traton: There were long negotiations as to which components MAN and which Scania is responsible for. Will electrification bring about changes in many areas?
We are preparing for this.
To this end, we opened the eMobility Center in Munich, for example, to qualify our employees, to build our prototypes and thus shape the change.
There is always a change in the world of work. In the future you will need different qualifications than before. How do you go about this? Do you already train differently?
The eMobility Center plays the relevant role here.
To learn qualifications, but also to see what we need.
A different requirement profile is required for high-voltage batteries than for the mechanics of an internal combustion engine.
Qualifying and learning this is part of our transformation.
The entire production process, including the commissioning of the vehicle, therefore takes place in the MAN eMobility Center.
There are also learning islands for training.
In this way, all colleagues gradually learn the process steps and the necessary skills for the subsequent assembly of electric trucks on the series production line in theory and practice.
You are the second largest industrial employer in the greater Munich area. If someone wants to hire you, what would you recommend them bring with you?
Interest in future technologies, dynamism and flexibility.
We are transforming in the field of battery electrics, in the field of digitization and in the field of autonomous driving.
These are incredibly exciting topics that go far beyond a single product.
Interested people can find a great field of activity here.
You call it autonomous driving. There are possibilities where commercial vehicles could already operate without a driver in cordoned-off areas away from the streets. What's going on?
We have gained experience in the Port of Hamburg where we can operate trucks autonomously in a closed environment. There are no pedestrians or cyclists. The traffic is designed for low speeds. Another issue is hub-to-hub traffic. Over longer distances on motorways in directional traffic, where there are no pedestrians and no cyclists, where there is also no crossing traffic. Here, however, there is the requirement that the speeds in the traffic flow are higher. This could also be used to bridge larger distances using battery power. We would like to implement test tracks where we can initially drive partially autonomously and later also fully autonomously - and also develop this for our customers.
There are already attempts with platooning, electronically coupled convoys that are controlled by a driver. What will happen to it?
We also learn a lot from these trials.
I could well imagine that it will be possible to electronically couple autonomous vehicles.
You are part of a global multi-brand group. How strong is the MAN brand in this group? It is only really introduced in Europe. How do you deal with that?
It's true, MAN has a focus on Europe.
But we also see a strong commitment in Korea and Australia, and you can also find other strong markets.
In our NewMAN strategy we have defined 40 focus markets, 27 of which are in Europe, but 13 outside.
We want to position ourselves even more globally.
What does the future of the Munich location look like?
Munich is and will remain our headquarters, main production plant for trucks with cab equipment and assembly as well as the center of MAN development. We have defined for Munich that the topic of electric trucks is worked out here with development and production.
And that this technological turnaround will take place here.
This is a clear commitment to Munich as a location.
Interview with Martin Prem
