Whether that number climbs to 20% or stalls will determine if Källenius's bet pays off or if Mercedes-Benz remains stuck between luxury aspiration and volume-manufacturer economics. With Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft. This division sells everything from the entry-level CLA (around $39,500) to Maybach models exceeding $226,000. In 2025, the Cars division sold approximately 1.8 million units, but profitability was uneven: the adjusted return on sales landed around 7.5% for the full year, dragged down by China pricing wars and EV transition costs. MB.OS, the proprietary operating system rolling out with the next-generation CLA, is supposed to enable over-the-air updates, paid feature unlocks, and subscription services. Revenue model: Mercedes-Benz earns revenue from selling passenger cars and vans, leasing and financing vehicles, aftersales parts and service, fleet and commercial van relationships, and software-enabled services. Profitability depends on premium pricing, product mix, manufacturing efficiency, battery and software execution, and regional demand. Competitive position: Mercedes-Benz competes through luxury brand equity, engineering heritage, high-end vehicles, global dealer reach, and pricing power in premium segments. When a smartphone manufacturer with zero automotive heritage launches an electric sedan that sells 100,000 units in months, prices it 40% below an equivalent EQE, and iterates its software weekly, it invalidates the assumption that car-making expertise is a meaningful barrier to entry in premium EVs. For a 35-year-old tech professional in Shanghai, a $45,000 NIO ET7 with battery swap capability might genuinely feel more premium than a $65,000 E-Class running two-year-old infotainment software. The Top-End portfolio — AMG, Maybach, G-Class — creates aspiration that pulls younger buyers into entry-level products, but only if those entry-level products feel technologically current. But building a vehicle operating system from scratch — one that must work across dozens of models, meet automotive safety standards, and feel premium — is brutally difficult. They're buying the assumption that any Mercedes-Benz dealer worldwide will service it competently, that the resale value will hold, that the safety systems reflect decades of crash research, and that the ownership experience will feel like it belongs to a different category than a Hyundai Genesis — even when the Genesis has similar specs on paper. It's built from overlapping layers: a global network of thousands of authorized service centers, a financial services arm that manages residual values (protecting what your car is worth in three years), safety innovations that became industry standards (crumple zones, ABS, ESP, PRE-SAFE), motorsport heritage that validates performance claims, and a product ladder that makes upgrading within the brand feel natural rather than forced. Over-the-air updates, paid feature activations, subscription services, DRIVE PILOT expansions — all of this requires a proprietary operating system that works reliably across the lineup. If the software feels as polished as a Tesla interface and the electric range hits competitive benchmarks without discounting, Källenius's entire value-over-volume thesis survives the transition to electrification. Success means MB.OS rolls across the lineup by 2028, enabling paid feature unlocks, subscription services, and DRIVE PILOT expansion that create recurring revenue on top of hardware margins. Jellinek commissioned performance cars from Daimler and raced them under the name of his daughter, Mercedes. And Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft operated as rivals.