Mercedes CEO: Future EVs Will Keep the Brand’s Soul
Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius says the brand’s new electric cars, including the C-Class Electric, will combine advanced software with the traditional premium feel that has defined Mercedes for 140 years.
Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius is confident that the company’s next generation of electric vehicles will win over traditional car enthusiasts, even as the brand becomes more digital and software-driven. Speaking during a private drive of the new C-Class Electric in Finland, Källenius said the car delivers the quiet, refined experience that has long been a Mercedes hallmark, while adding a new layer of digital capability.
“It’s nice and quiet and feels more like an E-Class,” Källenius said, noting that the car maintains its composure even at high speeds. The drive was briefly interrupted when the car’s own voice assistant chimed in with a comment about the thrill of autobahn driving, a moment that underscored the balance Mercedes is trying to strike between its traditional strengths and its push into software-defined vehicles.
Mercedes is midway through launching 40 models in three years, with the rollout set to finish by the end of 2027. The new C-Class and GLC are built on different platforms for their electric and combustion versions, but they share the same MB.OS operating system, which also appears in the new CLA and the upcoming S-Class. Källenius said a modular architecture strategy is key to managing such a large product offensive.
“If every nut and bolt on every one of those cars was new, you could never do it,” he said. “But if you have a modular strategy and an operating system platform strategy – the whole brain and central nervous system of the car – you don’t have to fundamentally develop a new one each time.”
The CEO acknowledged that electric cars and software can be a hard sell for enthusiasts who grew up debating V8 and V12 engines. He compared the shift to the early days of personal computing, when buyers compared processors rather than cylinders. “For traditional car nuts it feels like you’re learning a new language,” he said, “but are you really? The technology race has always been there as a combination of hardware and software.”
Källenius, who has led Mercedes since 2019, is the first non-German to hold the top job. His career at the company spans more than three decades, from procurement and engineering to running Mercedes-AMG and the Formula 1 engine division. He said the board still personally evaluates every new model, even if the engineers know more about the technical details.
“The board drives and evaluates everything, because at the very end the buck stops with us,” he said. “But I’m the first to admit the excellent engineers we have are better trained than us to do that.”
