Reports Warn on Daimler Projects With Caterpillar, Hyundai

Separate news reports this week said that a joint venture in the United States between truck and car manufacturer DaimlerChrysler AG (DCX) and Caterpillar (CAT) is near collapse, while the German company’s planned Asia truck venture with Hyundai Motor Co. will be delayed.

The reports come on the heels of last week’s dramatic move by DaimlerChrysler to replace the chief executive officer of its Portland, Ore.-based heavy truck manufacturer, Freightliner. Longtime CEO James Hebe was replaced by Freightliner’s former chief financial officer, Rainer Schmueckle.

A Bloomberg story Monday out of Stuttgart, Germany -- where Daimler is based -- cited a Handelsblatt newspaper report that the Caterpillar deal could fall apart.

Under that alliance, Caterpillar would develop and build engines and fuel systems for Freightliner trucks. But the report said managers of Daimler’s truck division prefer to supply engines to Freightliner from within the same corporation.

On Tuesday, a Reuters report from Frankfurt cited a Wall Street Journal Europe story that DaimlerChrysler and Hyundai are not likely to agree until the end of this year or early next year on the truck-making joint venture they had planned.

Targeting the Asian market, Daimler took a 9% stake in Hyundai last September, Reuters noted, and both companies had recently said they expected to soon announce how the venture would unfold.

The newspaper report said it would get a modest start in June with the two agreeing to make motors, and that Hyundai’s need to integrate its Kia Motors affiliate was one reason the truck venture was going slower than expected.

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