Daimler Pumping R&D into Electric Trucks, Connectivity, Autonomous Trucks
Daimler Trucks has a ‘Baby 8’ eActros electric truck in fleet testing in Europe; is an e-Cascadia next? Photo: Mercedes-Benz
“>
Daimler Trucks is not taking disruption sitting down. Last week the Germany-based company announced that it’s investing 2.6 billion euros ($3.2 billion) in research and development at its trucks division by 2019, as it gets ready to produce electric heavy-duty commercial vehicles starting in 2021, along with continuing work on connectivity and autonomous driving technologies.
Daimler is placing Mercedes-Benz eActros emissions-free electric trucks with some customers so they can test them in real-world conditions, with real drivers and real freight. If all goes well, the electric truck could go into full production starting in 2021.
And last year Daimler subsidiary Mitsubishi Fuso brought its electric eCanter medium-duty cabover to the U.S., where UPS is among the fleets evaluating it in real-world operations.
The eActros may technically be heavy-duty, it’s more of what we call a Baby 8 in this country, noted Roger Nielsen, Daimler Trucks North America President and CEO, in a conference call with trucking reporters this week. At the same time, however, he hinted that we will see an announcement in the coming months regarding electric heavy-duty trucks in North America. It’s not the first time he’s hinted at this, telling reporters last fall during the ATA Management Conference & Exhibition that he’s love to see an e-Cascadia.
During the recent conference call, Nielsen noted “Driving future technology” as one of his six goals for 2018, along with leveraging the global resources and “cutting-edge technology” of DTNA’s global parent.
“Our customers are all interested in future technology,” he said. “ We want to put future technology out there that makes sense for our customers. They don’t want new technology for the sake of technology – they want new …Read the rest of this story
