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Daimler sets bigger roll-out
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September 14, 1999: 8:59 a.m. ET
Automaker to launch 64 new models; Smart car head quits
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - DaimlerChrysler announced Tuesday it will develop about 64 new car and truck models by 2004 in a previously announced 46 billion euro ($47.6 billion) development effort, but also conceded that the head of its struggling Smart car unit has quit.
The German-U.S. automaker expanded its roll-out plans from an initial goal of launching 34 new vehicles over the next three years. The investment plans would allow the automaker to launch a new model each month over the next few years.
Developing new models is "the lifeblood of this industry," DaimlerChrysler co-chairman Robert Eaton said in an interview with CNNfn from the Frankfurt International Motor Show, where the company unveiled its revised targets. "That's really required to be as successful as we intend to be."
The automaker earlier announced at its annual shareholders meeting in May that it would invest 46 billion euros in the roll-out effort.
Meanwhile, Lars Brorsen, head of its Micro Compact Car unit, has resigned after disagreeing with other executives on how to boost the vehicle's slow start. His resignation is effective Oct. 1.
No decision on a successor to Brorsen has been made, a Daimler spokesman said.
The highly touted Smart car has gotten
off to a slow start.
The much publicized Smart car, initially dubbed the "Swatchmobile," has been a financial headache for the automaker -- which inherited full control of the tiny, multicolored vehicle last year when it bought out the remaining 19 percent stake in the venture it did not own from Swatch. Daimler bought the minority stake to get a firmer grip on the unit, which has a manufacturing site in France.
One issue weighing on the Smart car was a delayed launch due to a safety problem.
Meanwhile, Eaton said the company is sticking with plans to sell more than 80,000 Smart cars this year. That figure was revised in May from an earlier target of 130,000 vehicles.
"We're absolutely confident we will reach that," Eaton said of the revised target. "We will continue to build the brand after that."
More optimistic
An internal document for Daimler managers, obtained by the Financial Times, reflects a more optimistic outlook on the company's earnings and cost savings achieved from the merger with Chrysler last year, the newspaper reported Tuesday. The document said the company hopes to exceed its revenue target of nearly 140 billion euros.
"We now assume the percentage increase in our profits should be in line with the percentage increase in revenue," the document said, according to the newspaper.
That will likely be of interest to shareholders, who sent the company's shares tumbling in late July after it posted sluggish first-half earnings.
Also Tuesday, Daimler said Mercedes-Benz sales in the first two-thirds of 1999 rose 13 percent to 645,000 vehicles.
Investors liked the news, pushing Daimler stock up 1.1 euros to 74.45 in Frankfurt Tuesday afternoon. 
-- from staff and wire reports
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