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Hyundai cabovers are hauling freight in Mexico today. WIll they come to the U.S. next? Photo: Sven-Erik Lindstrand
" width="300">I don't get to the Mexican seaside nearly as often as I need to.* I was an Air Force brat – I went to middle school in Tokyo, of all places. Given that upbringing, I've been sort of programmed to view visits to foreign countries as an opportunity to learn. Although you never really know going in what you'll discover once you're there.This was exactly the case a couple of weeks ago when I went to Mexico for a Daimler Trucks North America briefing on the state of the Mexican truck market. I learned a lot about the Mexican market, both this year and looking ahead into 2018. Which is important; Mexico is, after all, one of our most important trading partners.
The thing I learned that I wasn't expecting, though, was the extent to which foreign truck OEMs are playing in the Mexican market today. The list of the companies Daimler has to compete against south of the border contains their usual competitors here at home, but it also includes a pretty impressive who's who of companies they currently do not have to tango with stateside, including Chinese OEMs Foton and FAW, South Korea-based Hyundai, and the co-owned European marques MAN, Scania, and Volkswagen.
The presence of those OEMs brings a different set of challenges to the game from an OEM perspective. And it's one reason the Mexican trucking fleet looks so different from makes and models in the U.S. But to me, the interesting thing to consider is that for some (if not all) of these OEMs, it's a good bet that playing in Mexico is the trucking equivalent of dipping your toe in the water if you want to play
