DaimlerChrysler: 2002 North American heavy-truck market will dip below last year’s totals

STUTTGART, Germany (Feb. 8, 2002) — The head of DaimlerChrysler AG’s commercial vehicles business said he predicts 2002 heavy truck sales in North America to fall short of last year’s totals.

“I am expecting to see a total market of only 150,000 vehicles sold in the United States and Canada in 2002,” DaimlerChrysler board member Eckhard Cordes told the German newspaper Handelsblatt on Wednesday. In 2001, when he presented a restructuring plan for Freightliner, DaimlerChrysler’s truck unit in North America, Cordes projected total market sales of 170,000.

Cordes said the Freightliner restructuring plan is so far on track to return the business to profitability next year. He indicated there would be no further job cuts, and said inventories of new trucks, which had been excessive last year, are now at more normal levels.

“The steps that have been announced will suffice,” Cordes said. “If need be, there might be one-week plant closures. But it would make no sense to cut still more jobs, since to do so would be to hamper Freightliner’s ability to respond promptly to any upturns in demand.”

DaimlerChrysler blamed costs associated with reorganizing its Chrysler and Freightliner units for a loss of $589 million last year. The loss compared with a net profit of $6.9 billion in 2000.

DaimlerChrysler does not report the financial performance of its individual businesses.