He Leads Europe’s Car Manufacturers in 2025: Mercedes Benz Chief Ola Källenius Elected ACEA Chairman

The German-Swedish Ola Källenius, President and CEO of Mercedes Benz, can add another top post to his CV: The board of the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association, ACEA, has today appointed him chairman for 2025. Källenius succeeds Renault's CEO, Luca de Meo. ACEA was founded in 1991 and consists of Europe's 14 major car and truck manufacturers and has close cooperation with the 31 national car industry organizations in Europe.
“ACEA is one of the most trusted voices in Brussels,” says Källenius, adding: “Under my presidency, ACEA will focus on improving the regulatory environment to sharpen our competitiveness in the digital and electric era. We will work for a market-driven transition towards reducing the industry's carbon dioxide emissions. And we will stand up for international trade that is free, fair and rules-based.”
Källenius' appointment undeniably comes at a time of dramatic change in the automotive industry. Above all, what characterizes the development, particularly noticeable in the automotive sector, is the exponentially increasing proportion of electricity, electronics and software in all vehicles. This at the same time as AI is gaining ground in the automotive industry, which has always been at the forefront of digital product and production development.
The software part in particular has made great demands on change and the introduction of new industrial methodology in both product development and manufacturing work; something that has largely characterized, for example, Mercedes.
In short, today's cars are more connected, software-controlled, autonomous and electric than ever. Each of the vehicles contains, or will soon contain, millions of lines of code and must be able to handle terabytes of data on a daily basis. This is a huge undertaking and it has led to a "volcanic" change in the way several major vehicle manufacturers work, not least now rapidly building up sophisticated infrastructures for software development.
The change in approach comes in light of a future in the industry that is increasingly about the development of software-defined vehicle (SDV) platforms that are profoundly changing the automotive and transportation industry, as well as electric and hybrid cars. Within his own company, Mercedes–which btw works in a product development environment which on the PLM side means that Siemens Digital Industries NX CAD and Teamcenter PLM/cPDFm tools play main roles–Källenius has worked hard to meet the demands of the new era, including through the group's commitment and investment in a sophisticated infrastructure for software development, which cost hundreds of millions of euros.
"I am convinced that the automotive industry in Europe has what it takes to continue to be successful in global competition," he says in a comment on the ACEA appointment.
The automotive industry has gained a knowledgeable, process-competent and strong voice in Brüssel.