Episode 249: Mercedes-Benz USA CEO Adam Chamberlain

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Welcome into Episode 249 of Cars and Culture with Jason Stein here on SiriusXM Business Channel 132.

On this edition of Cars and Culture, we're talking about what it really takes to lead an iconic brand.

In a moment that's anything but simple, because even the strongest names in the automotive world eventually face it.

Too much complexity, too many moving pieces, and a market that's changing faster than the strategy.

For Mercedes-Benz, that moment is now. Over the past several years, the luxury landscape has become more crowded, more competitive, and far less predictable.

Electrification has reshaped product plans, pricing has drifted, and dealers, the ones closest to the customer, have been navigating a system that, by many accounts, became harder to execute.

So what happens when you bring in a leader who has seen both sides of that equation?

Adam Chamberlain returns to Mercedes-Benz North America after time inside Lithium Motors, the largest public dealer group in the United States.

He operated one of the largest dealership networks in the world, 40 plus brands, dozens of markets, and a front row seat to what actually works and what doesn't, at retail.

And when he came back, he didn't start with a new mandate. He started by listening, dealer by dealer, market by market.

And what he heard was remarkably consistent. The business had become too complicated. Too many layers, too many initiatives, not enough clarity.

His response is simple. Simplify the strategy. Put dealers and customers back at the center and focus the entire organization on what matters most.

Selling cars, serving customers, and creating demand. Now that sounds straightforward.

But doing it in a world shaped by tariffs, geopolitical uncertainty, shifting EV adoption and rising global competition is anything but easy.

In this conversation, we go deep on why simplicity is becoming a competitive advantage, how his retail experience is reshaping the way he thinks about OEM leadership,

the importance of empowering general managers instead of over-managing from headquarters, and how Mercedes-Benz plans to grow, not just with product, but with discipline around pricing, incentives, and execution.

We also talk about the future of powertrain strategy, not as a mandate, but as a choice. Internal combustion, hybrid, electric. Let the customer decide.

And yes, we get into product, because when you're talking about Mercedes-Benz, you have to, from next-generation S-Class technology to high-performance EVs that behave like V8s,

to a product cadence that could define the brand's next decade.

And along the way, there's a Hollywood tie-in, a Formula One connection, and a reminder that for all the strategy and complexity, this is still an industry driven by emotion, by design, by performance,

and by the people who bring it all to life. My conversation with Adam Chamberlain is next, here on Cars & Culture.

Tell us a little bit about the last, what, nine months, I guess, in the role.

Yeah, so, I'm welcome back to the OEM world, and I want to talk a lot about your retail experience, but welcome back to the OEM role.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, so I started back up with Mercedes-Benz on the 1st of July, responsible for US and Canada, North America, and really wanted to spend the first 60, 90 days understanding the business.

So just for context, I worked there for six and a half years before, then I went to do an Aston Martin job a little bit, and then went to retail for three and a half years, which we'll talk about.

But so I knew the business, but the business had changed quite a lot, and it was really important to me to get out. I met, I came here in September time to meet the Canadian dealer board.

We had a great conversation, a great dinner. Spent time with Andreas and his team at Mercedes-Benz of Canada, and then also did a very similar thing.

We did 12 different lunches or dinners in around the States, going to major markets, meeting the dealers and listening, and the keyword was listening, right?

And used that, used my time in Germany and some time talking to the teams and stakeholders to kind of create a plan.

And we launched that plan to our dealers in the US in November and in Canada in November as well in Grats.

We took the Canadian dealers to our G-Class Adventure and Factory place, and we launched the Canadian plan there.

So when I say we, it was really Andreas and his team, I was just kind of there on the sidelines.

What did you hear when you returned to the brand and talked to the dealers in this country?

Honestly, the consistency between all the dealers I spoke to was remarkably similar.

That we'd overcomplicated the business. There was a lack of trans, an overcomplication, you can create intransparity.

And it was less, to be very clear, it was less in Canada, more in the US.

But still, if you're complicating things from Stuttgart, you kind of have to be amazing to stop it complicating in some places or another.

So overcomplicated, let's have a clear plan. What do we need to do?

And please put the dealers back at the centre of that strategy.

And that's basically essentially what we did and what we've done over the last nine months.

And over the course of the last nine months, explain a little bit of the simplification, if you could.

What did you try to attack first? What are your measurables?

Well, the way I think about it, and again, we'll talk about retail in a second.

I have to be very careful when I talk about retail because some of my guys from the FAF team were in the room.

So make sure that I don't talk with too much knowledge because they'll call me out on it.

But what I learned in my time in retail, honestly, was you need to basically, as far as you possibly can, empower the teams in retail to do the business.

Because it's such a minute by minute, tremendously volatile operation between what can happen with customers, with their EMS and everything else,

that you need to give GMs and the management teams and stores the bandwidth to get on and manage their business, walk the floor,

not be spending hours in front of a computer managing spreadsheets and KPIs and all these things.

Because by definition, then you're not out there talking to customers, you're not leading your teams, you're not on the service drive at 7.30 in the morning,

you're not in the sales meeting at 8.30, which is when the rubber hits the road, in my humble opinion.

So we just tried to back off some of the, and again, much more US than Canada to be really fair,

but we tried to back off some of the micro management we had in the business and empower the teams locally.

We put Regions back into the US, Andreas had a team here in Canada, but we tried to empower them to take decisions closest to the dealers that impact

the dealer being able to give a great performance and looking after customers.

So we're not going to place you into the FAF organization anytime soon, but you did become a retail, a student of retail I guess,

when you left the OEM world and you went to Lithia.

Yes.

So why Lithia at the time and what did you learn?

Lithia at the time, they offered me a great job, so it seemed like it was a good idea to go there.

And they offered me, I ran the eastern side of US and plus Canada for about the first 10 months, and then they asked me to become chief operating officer.

So it was a wonderful opportunity.

What did I learn all about retail?

I spent a lot of my time and looking for Dan Rusman and the FAF guys because I spent a lot of my time out in retail.

I think I was here every two months for the best part of a year and a half.

And that piece about empowering general managers to deliver results.

And the CEO of Lithia, a gentleman called Brian DeBoer, he's an amazing visionary.

Anyone who's taken a company from 9 billion in 2019 to close to 40 billion where it is today deserves some kudos as an amazing visionary.

But he would hammer on to the leadership in our company.

Don't have too many initiatives stopping general managers, leading customers, leading teams and delivering results.

And then of course you're walking in the stores.

We had 44 different franchises and if you think we had UK, Canada, US, but in 30 odd states of the US you have lots of differing things going on plus the 44 different franchises.

So trying to stay at kind of a 10,000 foot level and empower the teams to deliver the results.

What an enormous on the job MBA, if you will.

Brian, you just hinted at it just for a moment and you know Brian has had a meteoric rise as has the company.

The two are obviously intertwined and now number one in the United States.

Give us a little view into what your relationship was like with Brian and beyond his marching orders.

What did you learn from him?

First of all, the visionary piece.

I talked about the growth and revenue.

At the same time, you also build a bank, a driving financial corporation, which will deliver huge returns over the next five years.

Now it's outgoing having to build the reserves.

It now books pure net interest margin every month.

So his vision to do that, build stores and build the kind of ecosystem we drive online and use car platform as well was amazing.

But his ability to manage that from a high level and not go down into the deep, that was really amazing.

And so we had great data on all the stores.

So you could in 30 seconds and the FAF guys know in 30 seconds you can be pretty deep into the operations of a store from your iPad.

But to try and run that and empower people to deliver results.

So yeah, great guy to work for and I've got a great relationship with him today.

How did that retail background shape maybe how you're allocating capital and attention now between product, dealer support, customer engagement?

So I think, like I think I talked about a little bit, Jason, I think I need to make sure that my teams are engaged in the mindset of supporting dealers to sell cars,

look after customers, give a great experience.

And you know, once that wheel starts, you want to bring the customer back and sell them another car is you can 10,000 feet, you can make it sound really simple, right?

But it's but that's what I need my teams to do is make sure that we're here to support the dealers because in the end, we have 57 dealers in Canada and 384 in the United States,

but they all have different cultures that actually work directly for us, right?

So we have to support them and create the conditions in which they feel they can succeed.

Yeah, that's the mantra. And obviously, make sure we get the pricing right of the cars, make sure the incentives or the programs are good that we can be competitive and sell the cars and create the demand through advertising.

But that's those are our kind of fundamental things and then let the stores look after the customers deliver results.

But even in the retail role you were in, I mean, you're living the same pain points and frustrations that many in the room here are realizing as well, which is chaos, uncertainty.

The grounds changing as you're standing on it.

I'm guessing that taken back now into an OEM role, you can appreciate a lot more of the chaos that exists.

You're living your own chaos, which we'll get to in a second, but the chaos of the retail world through the lens that you had prior.

Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think you also layer in, I can't think of any time we've seen volatility on geopolitics.

And then I don't need to say that to any of you guys in the audience here.

And then uncertainty around the world and everything else, right?

So I think the important thing to do is, you know, when we talk, I'm looking at Andreas and Suzanne out there, try and keep it simple.

So what's our goal? So for this year for the US, my goal was three things for the dealers to run behind, 325,000 cars.

We've got to create more demand and be better at converting the leads to sale.

And we've got to look after customers so they come back and buy another car and try and have a pure vision.

Obviously, then you have some little pillars to support it, but be consistent.

I said to the dealers at NADA, I was at NADA last Wednesday with you.

Right.

And I said to the dealers, you're going to hear me be so boringly consistent in our plans, because that's what you need.

Unless another fundamental shift changes, you need that consistency and that focus so that you can execute at a local level.

Yeah.

Why'd you decide to go back to an OEM?

That's a great question.

And it's funny, Daniel Rusman from FAF asked me if I made the right decision, he asked me every time I see him.

There's a little bit of a romantic piece, honestly.

I got so close to the role of CEO of Mercedes-Benz, and Mercedes is a wonderful brand.

140 years old, actually two weeks ago, 29th of January, we marked the 143th year of Mercedes-Benz.

And Tim, I look at you, you have some of that heritage as well, right?

It's a wonderful brand with so many amazing stories and amazing things the brand has done.

And the chance to lead that, I came to North America in 2016.

And my family is kind of two in University of Georgia, so you're in now, right?

It's a bit too late to turn around.

So the chance to do that and lead that company through a really difficult period, we're going to see consolidation.

I wrote in 1994 for my thesis about consolidation in the auto industry.

It never quite happened, and we're going to see that happen over the next five years for sure.

So to do that at a time and do that with the opportunity, I still believe we were languishing.

Last year, the team here did a better job, but in the US, we were 90,000 cars behind BMW and 70,000 cars behind Lexus.

We used to be number one, consistently.

So I felt the opportunity to get that back, the opportunity to lead through a real difficult transition of the industry was too good.

And plus, honestly, it's a slight thing, I was living in Southern Oregon, but still living in Atlanta.

So living back in Atlanta on a personal level.

But a bit big, maybe I'm an over-romanticist, Jason.

Well, congratulations on a decade.

Thank you.

Being a North American now.

That's amazing.

The romanticism around the brand is legit.

The results also have to follow, right?

So you put out some markers, and even just last week, you're not only the 325 that you just mentioned,

but you're also pushing 400,000 annual retail sales in the United States by 2030.

That's a significant growth agenda.

I know you have growth plans in Canada too.

That's focused SUVs, core products, retail execution, volume, customer engagement.

How do we get to the 400,000?

What's behind some of that?

Great.

It's a superb question.

First part, we're such a product-driven business, right?

And we've got over 30 new cars that we'll bring to North America between now and at the end of 2029.

So it's a massive product cadence.

And if I think about this year, we'll have a CLA.

The first car we'll launch is a Bev.

And here, I can announce pricing today.

It's going to be $55,900 for the four-wheel drive Bev car.

That car, that changes lots of the paradigm so that we're associated with cars.

The car got accredited by Edmunds to 434 miles real range.

And they test those cars comprehensively to get that.

It charges back up to 200 miles in about 10 minutes, just less than 10 minutes.

So it solves that whole, take a day to charge it, and it's only going to be 200 miles, right?

Right.

Plus, you're starting to get back into the affordable.

The third big barrier to entry, as we all know, was the affordability piece.

So to have a car in the mid-50s with that range and that charging capability is exciting.

But that's just one product.

We bring then facelifted S-class, and the summer, the car's amazing.

Over 52% of the car is new.

Then we bring a facifted GLE and GLS, an electric GLC, which will be on the price of the gasoline car,

with the same kind of range, 400 plus, and fast charging.

And we go from there.

And the other thing, so we get a product offensive, we get programs.

We've moved away, both here and the US.

We've moved away a little bit in our price corridors to be under Lexus.

And you know, in the end, the product does a great job for you,

but someone's going to make a monthly payment or sign a check.

And if you suddenly move out of a corridor from Mercedes, it was always about 10%.

We could be about 8%, 10% of BMW would be OK.

We'd move beyond that.

So what we've done is got back.

And we are right now, we're pretty much on the head of the compareable BMW products.

So one product, huge range of new products.

And we'll have FaceSafe, GLE, GLS, new GLC.

Then we'll have other derivatives off those cars.

And we get an all new GLE and GLS in 29, which will be bigger cars,

more suitable for the North Marine market.

So we see huge products.

We see strong incentive programs to convert customers.

And we see changing our advertising just a tiny little piece.

We become super brandy.

And that's great, but we have one of the most recalled brands anyway.

So what we're going to do is be brandy,

but also remind people of the price we can be at.

So you'll see us being a little bit more tactical and especially lower funnel,

a little bit more tactical in marketing to allow conversion.

So those are the three pillars.

And then finally, the most important piece,

I believe, engaging the dealers to run and retail cars.

That's at the heart of our plan.

You've really emphasized flexibility in product, in powertrain.

You want to meet customers where they are rather than facing a single path.

Yes.

One could argue it was, if I go back a year or two ago,

it was pretty much a single path.

This is exactly where it's going and you're either on the path or off the path.

In luxury, buyer expectations are especially nuanced, right?

How do you balance product choice across internal combustion, hybrid, EV,

while preserving brand integrity and, for dealers, retail simplicity?

Of course.

A challenge.

And I think, again, hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

But what we'll try and do in the future,

certainly on the core cars, is you'll have a CLA Bev or a CLA Ice.

OK.

You'll have a GLC Bev or a GLC Ice.

A CBEV, CICE.

And by the way, all those cars will be here by the end of next year.

Then on the bigger cars, where providing the range and getting the weight

and everything right, I think we'll probably have high-range plug-ins.

And, you know, the outlook for plug-in, I think,

Andrew S. told me sold around 15% last year of XEVs.

The outlook for plug-in here in the U.S. is around 10% to 15%.

So we'll have plug-in hybrids that you can do 80, 90 kilometers real electric range in.

For most people, that's their commute.

It's funny, my neighbors, we had an incentive change,

which we haven't had here, thankfully,

but we had an incentive change in the U.S. where the incentives got canceled.

And so we had a real rush on electrics and hybrids up to the end of September.

September, right.

So my neighbors bought a GLE 450 hybrid.

They've only put gas in the one time since September.

One time.

Because they run it doing 55 miles on a charge.

It's those customers who don't charge their plug-ins.

That's more of a problem.

Correct.

And on electrification momentum, it's real, obviously,

and it's been talked about a lot today about it being a percentage of the market.

And obviously, philosophies are different here than they are in the U.S. on many subjects,

but especially that one.

But it's relatively uneven.

What mix do you think makes sense going forward in order to succeed with real buyers,

not just targets?

Another great question.

I think the first challenge is if you think about the world and we supply the world,

you've got in China and Europe, you had to be 50% in Europe electric by 2030 and 100% by 2035.

China had to be 60% by 2030 and 100% by 2035.

So already, those are the three largest markets in the world.

So already, if you're an OEM operating at a global level, you have to have a provision to have both.

You can't be doing either or.

But I think what we've learned, particularly as Mercedes-Benz is, you can't have an electric car

that's 50% more expensive than a counterpart of some, at least in size or dynamic or whatever,

but we'll have cars that look the same, CLA I, so we'll have that optionality.

And honestly, Jason, let the customers decide.

Yeah.

Let the customers decide.

And that sounds complex, but we can manage production.

We've got a good idea of where we think the ICE mix will be, and we can ramp up BEV if we need to do more.

What's real buyer readiness, not just regulatory expectations going forward, right?

Yeah, 100%.

And what we see, and a survey done in December, so after the end of the incentives,

14% of customers across the whole country said they were definitely shortlisted.

BEV is their next car.

In California, that was 28%.

Yeah.

The other thing we saw, last year we had about 9,500 BEVs returning off lease,

and 40% of those customers bought another BEV, so it's real.

I'm sure you all know in this room, people do become evangelists for the product.

They like the smoothness, they like not going to gas station, whatever, whatever.

But another 25% bought another Mercedes-Benz, so we're able to switch 65% back into the brand,

which is, honestly, that's a pretty normalized level of loyalty and retention.

So we see giving that optionality is the most important thing.

But we certainly see a demand for BEVs going forward.

Welcome back to Cars & Culture here on SiriusXM Business Channel 132.

I'm your host, Jason Stein.

Now the continuation of my conversation with Mercedes-Benz USA boss, Adam Chamberlain.

To see more Cars & Culture interviews, visit the Cars & Culture YouTube channel.

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who are driving the industry forward.

Such a crowded luxury landscape, probably even more so than when you did your first tour at Mercedes.

I mean, what with other brands that have now elevated and come into the marketplace.

How do you define, for the dealers in the room, how do you define your competitive advantage

and how should they articulate that to their customers?

I think it's a great question.

I think, first of all, every morning I wake up and think how fortunate I am to represent a brand that has that allure, right?

It's such a strong brand.

So I think what we have to do, I said it a little bit early,

what maybe we lost track of a little bit was we had to be somewhat competitive and have a price position.

And we lost that, so I think if we can be in the price position with our products

and we can communicate that and give people a great experience in our stores,

then I'm highly confident Mercedes-Benz and more cars, highly confident.

Manufacturing footprint, a lot of conversation today.

A lot of talking in the news of late about tariffs related to production, related to manufacturing.

You've increased your manufacturing footprint in the United States.

I watched as the plant in Alabama went up and many of your other geographic locations.

What's your take on manufacturing in Canada?

I know you're not here to make any announcements today.

However, build where you sell, not take the tariff hits that you've taken.

What's your view on it?

First of all, I'd obviously love to be able to do something called a CKD.

We do CKD in South Carolina for our sprint of business.

It's a skill we are used to.

So I'd love to be able to do something, but we're not at the stage of being able to announce anything

or get close to announcing anything just yet.

As you know, we do produce, we're just about to announce our five millionth SUV out of Alabama.

We've been there for 30 years, but if I could do something there and bring some CKD, I'd love to.

And you know also we've committed to take our GLC production to Alabama as well.

Trying to manage all those spinning plates at a macro level and you've only got so much capex.

Your capex is tied, but it's something we will look at for sure.

Because you don't have to supply many cars for the capex to become a business case pretty quickly.

So you came in in July and you were, forgive me, handed a bag of shit in terms of the level of uncertainty.

Your words?

Not yours. Don't quote them on that, I said that.

But I mean, you're at the most tumultuous time, one might argue, one of the most tumultuous times.

I always feel like we're in the most tumultuous time.

Of course.

But you're dealing with tariffs. You did not pass any price increases onto the consumer.

When I talked to one of your competitors last week at NADA, they talked about having to probably put some price increases in.

In the US now I'm talking about for next year.

Where are we on that? Give us a little window into your mind on how all that works.

Because frankly, it's unsustainable at a certain level, isn't it?

I mean, you're not producing McLarens, but you're producing expensive vehicles.

And thankfully, you do see you have to find your little thanking moments as well.

We did produce the Geely and GLS in Alabama.

Alabama.

And that will be 90,000 cars this year, 100,000 cars for North America.

So that gives us some respite.

We're still discussing, pushing for some sort of export credits.

We also export a lot of vehicles.

You export a ton of vehicles.

And we think it'd be fair if we built them here, which was apparently the original design of the whole thing.

That's right.

Then we think it'd be fair to get some credits for working on that.

But beyond that, though, we took a very clear decision not to price the customer.

Because I think I talked about earlier, our pricing corridors had crept a little bit, Jason,

probably outside of the normal.

And we thought, OK, let's try and use this as an opportunity if we can.

And we managed to get the board on site both in Canada and in the US.

And so we put about less than 1% into the market last year, which was less than inflation.

And our competitors moved again in the new calendar year.

So at the start of January, our competitors moved.

Some more, one of them moved over 3%, one moved about 2%.

We stayed.

And our plan of record this year is also not to go crazy with price increases.

But of course, what you have to be ready to react to are the situations around the world, right?

But right now, the plan of record for Mercedes is to be very cautious around raising prices

because we know we want to sell more cars.

And normally, what happens when we put prices up as an elasticity impact, right?

And the ambition to grow outweighs right now, grow and outrun the tariff cost

is certainly they're listening to me in the board with that argument.

I bet they are, yeah, with great interest.

How do you scenario plan all of that?

I've asked a couple of other people that today, including Duncan Aldred,

the president of General Motors North America.

I mean, how do you account for the various scenarios that creep up?

I think, I mean, what we try and do is this will seem a slightly different answer

because Duncan's got more production than I have, right?

I'm really just a sales and marketing guy because we take the finished goods.

They're just being candid about our relative positions.

So what I try and do is say, we obviously had a war room for the tariffs and had other things,

but I generally try and say, look, we have a team in Germany managing all of this with us.

We have to input to that, but our job here is to help keep dealers stable

and focus them on the job at hand, which is selling cars parts now as in North America.

So of course we get involved and we'll go and have a discussion,

but the overarching job is to keep our, and I'm sure all of you guys, the dealers in the room,

do the same when you get things locally or whatever else.

Your job is to keep your managers focused on looking after that guest,

making sure you're either converting a sale, selling them the finance

or looking after their car and service, right?

Because it's really easy. What you find is it's super easy for people to panic

and become totally distracted by everything else, and this is a doomsday moment.

It's important to keep the team focused on the job.

Control what you can control.

Control the controllables. Exactly.

You said you had a war room?

We did have a little war room, yes.

What'd that look like?

Tariffs everywhere. Different rain.

Lots of dollar bills that were going out, the company not coming in sadly.

But actually I took that away again pretty quickly because once we had the visibility

of what it was, I didn't want people becoming distracted by that.

Right.

So it was a room that we ran at eight o'clock every morning for an hour.

What's new today? What do we know? What do we not know?

But again, I need my teams focused on looking after dealers here and selling cars parts now.

I'm sure Brian had a similar war room too.

Brian does, but Brian is super focused on let's not be distracted.

And we had a narrative at Lithia because I was still there at the start of the tariff conversation.

Brian was like, we cannot control the tariff situation.

We don't even get to really influence our OEMs.

Let's keep our guys focused on what's in front of them.

So that was the mentality.

Wow.

How many different brands when you were at Lithia?

44.

44 different brands.

Yes.

I mean, it's everybody.

Yeah.

You go from McLaren here in Toronto.

You go to KiaHun.ly, everybody.

Pagani, Pagati, everything.

What did you learn about OEM bosses when you were on that side of the fence?

I've got a deep respect and admiration for Toyota Lexus because how simple they kept the business

and how they treated their dealers like superstars and VIPs.

Yeah.

So, and obviously see a broad spectrum of different names.

Did you have others that you thought differently about?

Of course.

So, but we'll leave it there.

I'll let you off the hook.

A lot of talk today.

Our other main subject is about Chinese vehicles.

It impacts you obviously less than it does Duncan.

Yes.

For now.

What's your view on increasing quotas and the Chinese, the door cracking open in Canada?

I guess my worry is that we don't operate on a level playing field, right?

We have antitrust and everything in the Western world and we have a country supporting the development

to get a unique position in a global marketplace.

So, that's my biggest concern because the products are really good.

If anyone, if there's any doubters in the room, I tell you the products are really, really good.

Forbes magazine article yesterday.

The lady writer had a Xiaomi 7 for two weeks.

It's a good article.

I encourage you to read it.

The cars are good.

So, and if you can't compete on price because of the price of R&D and technology, right?

So, I'd be concerned.

When we think about dealer enablement, retail execution, retail tools come to play.

Data, customer insights, sales process, enhancements that gives dealers an advantage on the lot.

How does Mercedes work with your dealers, maybe Andreas here, to make sure that they have all of the right tools

and where are the opportunities as it relates to dealer margin, maybe profitability to get some added discipline

into the operation.

We heard a lot about that last week at the U.S. meeting of dealers.

But what's your view on that now?

And you saw obviously a lot of dealer execution in your previous role.

Yes.

I think, again, in general, I never met a dealer who didn't want to succeed and win and run a good business and be.

I mean, maybe there's 1.1% exception in every walk of life, but in general.

So, I think if we can provide the tools to be successful, whether that's the right product,

it starts with the right product, but the right programs, the right training, and the right marketing

to help support conversion both at top of funnel and lower down the funnel, then I think you go a long way to do that.

And we've got some great tools now like hyper-local targeting where you can specifically,

this example specifically to the U.S., but I can target Porsche McCann and Audi Q5 for my GLC.

We need to grow GLC sales like crazy.

We're behind.

But I can target those two products and I can get messaging directly into customers' houses on my car versus those cars

and I can give dealers the tools to do that.

So, that's the way I think about giving them tools to help conversion.

And that includes things like connected services, which drive retention, volume.

What role do you see advanced technologies?

I don't know how much you're doing this at MBUSA right now, but in using connected services and AI software defined features to support dealers.

For sure.

Yeah, for sure.

So, it starts with the website.

So, our websites now have quite a lot of AI embedded to actually target faster and re-target the customer, right?

So, it starts there.

But I think you're going to see, secondly, in the Next Generation S class, which will be here in the summer,

that car's got AI embedded in the brain of the car to help make the driver experience more useful.

Because think about how we operate in many walks of life now,

but you get in the car and you still have to put the heated seats on.

You still have to do this.

You get the car knows what you do every day and knows most of your journeys, right?

So, I think you'll see technology changing rapidly in the next 12 months.

And you were just at the S class launch for about 24 hours in Shukart with a bunch of dealers.

Give us a little, for those of us who haven't seen it, the S class in my mind has always been the pinnacle

and the benchmark setter for technology across the industry.

Flagship isn't a big enough word.

What's coming that you've seen that is most advanced and appealing and will get us excited about luxury?

I think the first part is the operating system.

So, the new tech inside the car is all new, developed with NVIDIA and other partners.

And I think we'll allow it to go to level 2++ driving, where geofencing permits.

And so, I think the brain in the car to be predictive and support the driver experience will be amazing.

That could be a game changer.

And the car itself is, as you'd always expect from an S class, is fantastic.

We also talk about cars for two more minutes.

Yeah, please.

We've got a car called the codename C590.

We have an AMG GT four door right now with a 600 and 800 engine.

And we'll have an electric version of that car coming to North America in early 26.

You told me about this at Pebble Beach.

Yes.

We were really excited about it.

You showed me a picture.

Super excited.

We had that.

If anyone saw the ad with Brad Pitt waiting for the car to come up from the valet, that was all real.

That was not one bit of CGI in that whole ad, both the noise and everything was real.

So, basically this car can gear shift.

It sounds like a V8.

The noise is actually taken from a V8 AMG.

But I've never felt...

It was snow and ice on the roads.

We had pro drivers.

Cars doing over 120 miles an hour and you felt completely safe, completely planted.

0 to 60 in 2.2 seconds.

And it runs off and...

2.2 seconds.

And it runs off a new battery technology where the battery is cooled by oil.

So it means you can operate at high performance for longer and you can charge it super fast all the time

because the battery is not getting warm.

So the car just did 26,000 miles in 8 days.

In Italy it broke 51 world records.

So I think some cool technology coming from Mercedes-Benz like that.

I'll send you one, Jason, down in Tampa when we get one here.

You'll look forward to it.

But the dealers...

I took three of my more mature dealer friends from North America, from US.

And they were literally like kids from a sweet shop and a candy store.

Get it right, it's the English accent coming out.

A candy store.

And they were both...

The three of them, NADA, stood up on the stage and spoke about that car for a second.

And literally it was that...

You could see them back to when they were salesmen first selling cars.

And so that excitement with electric.

So we think that's a pretty exciting electric car.

27?

27, yes.

Okay.

Late this year, early next year.

And then we have...

We took them also in a new six cylinder GLC, which is Superfast 53.

So the guys are excited about product.

And that's, for all of us in the room, one of the reasons we love the industry is the product, right?

And so that's the other way I can make a van and get my dealers excited with great products.

I can't understand why you came back to the brand.

No clue.

All right.

You mentioned Brad Pitt.

He was going to moderate this instead of me, but he was unavailable.

What a halo.

Brad Pitt, Formula One movie.

Yeah, great movie.

On Mercedes-Benz last year.

I mean, I don't know that it could have been bigger.

I mean, first of all, it's the biggest...

How do you say it?

Sold the most tickets of any sports movie of all time.

Yeah.

It just added on to the froth around Formula One in North America.

You already know that Montreal and the momentum that exists there always has existed there.

What did it mean to you?

What did it mean to...

What did the movie mean for the brand?

It's kind of incalculable, isn't it?

I think it was huge.

I think it was a moment as well.

I mean, 2025 for probably every brand, borrowing one or two who had good luck will go down as one of the toughest years, right?

Just look at the earnings results that we're seeing the last couple of weeks.

Yeah, right?

It's scary.

So I think having that middle of the way through the year was a really exciting pinnacle for the brand.

Lewis Hamilton, we were fortunate that he was still a Mercedes driver.

He did a lot of the production, so the driving scenes are real.

Most of the drivers...

Obviously, there's some flip-outs which are helped by CGI and stuff, but a lot of the driving is real

because they did some takes and he said, this isn't good enough.

It doesn't look real.

And so he drove and some other guys drove and then you had the two English commentators

because Lewis had said to the production team, if Crofty and Martin Brundle aren't commentating, it's not Formula One.

And so they have those two and I just think...

And then you've got cameos from a bunch of different people, including Toyota, Wolfson.

And it felt because the car was using the Mercedes engine and the Mercedes cars are featured,

it felt like a really integral piece, right?

It felt authentic, whereas sometimes you know the things can look like they're just there for a paid extra.

So it felt authentic and it felt really great to be part of the brand and it reinforced, I think,

that what a... you know, out of good luck and timing, what a great position Mercedes-Benz has in Formula One.

It'd be a super exciting season this year with Cadillac and Audi joining the foray.

We just talked to Duncan about Cadillac, yeah.

That'd be exciting.

So it'd be another... and the season last year was epic.

I've never been, by the way, to Montreal, but I'm going to do that this year

because I've always been huge Villeneuve fans.

Wonderful.

Yeah.

Yeah, I had the opportunity to interview Joseph Kaczynski, the director.

It was also the Top Gun director and there will be a Formula One follow-up he's already talked about.

But the biggest thing was the coordination that Mercedes-Benz did with Joseph to get this done,

including building a car.

Yes.

The car was unique to the movie, or cars, I think they were one or two.

Realistic is basically what it was.

And you think if anyone saw the Top Gun movie, I watched that nine times on different flights.

And the production values are just so good.

It doesn't matter what you think about the movie itself, but the production values are so good.

And you saw him, and he's a wonderful guy.

He's a great guy, yeah.

You saw him put that same production into the F1 movie and again it made it feel so authentic.

So yeah, we were super privileged and maybe somewhat lucky to have been part of it, but you take what you get, right?

Wonderful.

Couple more.

What's the one metric you want dealers tracking most closely this year in the Mercedes-Benz stores?

One, that's a killer question.

Because I want to sell more cars, but I want to look after customers.

So both.

But most of the time, if they're selling more cars, you're looking after customers anyway.

So I'm going to give you one and a half.

Okay.

What's the biggest retail mistake you see dealers making this year?

That's a killer question.

What's the biggest retail mistake I see dealers making this year?

You can put your Lithia hat on or you can put your Mercedes-Benz hat on, whatever you prefer.

No, I think it's a great question.

It's what I asked the dealers to do.

I asked the dealers to do three things.

At the end of our meeting last November, and we did the same thing in Canada, we asked the dealers to plan for growth.

And the biggest thing is not planning for growth.

Because the dealer knows how many salespeople he needs to sell, 150 cars, whatever.

But all those metrics, the dealer knows, making sure we're planning for growth.

Because if we think in a certain market, we can get from 150 to 200 cars, but we don't do anything about it, guess what?

It probably won't happen.

And so planning for growth.

Because you mentioned it, whether we get to 400,000 in the end, I'm less worried about.

What I wanted was a goal for growth for my dealers.

And if we get, in the US, if we get to 370,000 cars by 2028, which is honestly, as well as BMW, that is not impossible for us.

That grows the units in operation by 28%.

Think about that.

Because that's how everyone in retail, that's where all the good things start when they're a good service business, right?

Because that covers then the overheads and we can go from there.

And we'll do a similar thing in Canada.

We have a growth plan for Canada and we want to grow the units in operation back up here.

We did 40,000 cars in Canada in 2019.

If we can grow back somewhat in that direction and start growing the units in operation, that's great for everyone.

Because that means you've got a sustainable business for a long, long time.

Right.

One piece of advice for the Canadian Mercedes-Benz dealers who are in the room as they head into Q2.

What would that be?

Advice.

Believe in us.

Stay with us.

That's my advice.

So we set out a plan.

I think we have an excellent relationship with the dealers in Canada.

We've got a great dealer board.

If Brian Loses is in here, I thank you.

I always thank our dealer chairman because that is a big investment in time.

But stay with us and believe our plan.

Yeah.

I saw you for your Mercedes-Benz party last week in a room that probably had, I don't know, one or two hundred people who came and left.

This guy was consumed by all of the people in the room on a regular basis.

They wanted to come over.

They wanted to shake his hand.

They wanted to hug him.

They wanted to buy him a drink.

I didn't take money the drinks.

You didn't.

No, you didn't.

We had a pact on that.

Yeah.

But you are beloved among the dealers.

I think they're very happy to have you back.

All you have to do is look at social media when you decided to come back to see how happy they were that now that you have simplicity.

There is clarity and the path is maybe a multi-level path now, right?

What do you, we sit here a year from now, what do you want to have accomplished?

If I've stood up and said a lot of things, I have to be delivering some of those results.

Honestly, I can't look at myself in the mirror, let alone all those people who believe, right?

So we have to deliver some growth and we have to put down some of the markers.

And one of the things we've done is take, what are our commitments both through all those lunches, way back at the start of the meeting,

talked about all those lunches and engagement.

We made notes and had those and had a mini-action plan, then another mini-action plan for the dealer meeting.

I put that up in front of the dealer board every time we meet to say, are we keeping honest to these things?

So I think you have to show some progress.

Right.

So trajectory, that's the results.

Yeah.

Welcome back to the Commonwealth.

Welcome back to Mercedes-Benz.

It's been good to be here.

Thank you.

Adam Chamberlain.

Thank you.

Big thanks to my guest again, Mercedes-Benz USA Boss, Adam Chamberlain.

To see more Cars and Culture interviews, visit the Cars and Culture YouTube channel.

Subscribe, comment, check out hundreds of conversations with the creators, collectors, and culture makers who are driving the industry forward.

That's episode 249 of Cars and Culture.

I'm your host, Jason Stein.

We'll see you down the road.

Episode 249: Mercedes-Benz USA CEO Adam Chamberlain

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