Daimler Truck hosted its inaugural strategy day, setting out its ambitions as an independent company and its plans to unlock its full potential, both operationally and financially. Daimler Truck’s management board led by CEO Martin Daum presented strategic objectives, key financial targets and technological goals.

Looking ahead, an independent Daimler Truck will accelerate its strategic ambitions and address its financial performance. While in North America Daimler Truck holds a 40% market share in the heavy duty segment and benchmark profitability, its recent record in other market regions is less satisfactory. The inconsistent regional profitability records of Europe, Brazil and Asia need to be improved significantly.

“Our mission as an independent company is clear: Our ambition is to lead the way to zero emissions in the trucking business by accelerating the development of battery and fuel cell vehicles. And we will reset profitability. We will target the benchmark in each region. Every region must deliver competitive performance and we are willing to implement the measures necessary to achieve this goal. We are willing to take hard decisions to lower our breakeven and raise our performance,” Martin Daum, CEO of Daimler Truck AG, said.

Daimler Truck will put further emphasis on the growth of its aftermarket and services revenues to drive profitability, and customer retention. This includes the traditional spare parts and maintenance service business, and also financial services like tailor-made leasing, financing and insurances. New and fast growing services in the fields of digitalized, autonomous and electrified transport offer additional growth potential. Overall, Daimler Truck sees significant growth potential in services and aims to increase the revenues on the service portfolio from the current 30% towards 50% in 2030.

Andreas Gorbach, the new CTO and Head of the Truck Technology Group, set out the premises of the Daimler Truck technology strategy: First of all, the company will ramp down internal combustion engine (ICE) powertrain spending and work with partners. For instance, Daimler Truck is already partnering with Cummins for medium duty engines. In addition the company is actively seeking additional partnerships in the heavy duty engine sector to share necessary investments. Daimler Truck will further reduce spending in conventional powertrain and redirect the vast majority of R&D spending to ZEV technologies by 2025. For ZEV technology, the company is committed to both battery-electric vehicles (BEV) and hydrogen solutions.

To support customers in the early stages of operation eTrucks Daimler Truck is also kick starting charging infrastructure in the core markets of Europe and North America. In Europe Mercedes-Benz Trucks announced a strategic partnership with Siemens Smart Infrastructure and Engie to provide charging solutions for truck fleets at depots. In North America DTNA’s powertrain unit Detroit announced a partnership with Power Electronics to provide onsite consulting, installation and support for 350 kW megachargers. More details on this are also subject of a separate press release today.

In addition to its intense focus on battery electric trucks, Daimler Truck also intends to accelerate the development and deployment of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Trucks (FCEV). The high energy density of hydrogen, quick refueling times and the likely development of a hydrogen energy system in many markets mean that Daimler Truck is convinced that FCEVs will play a key role in commercial transportation. Backed by the cellcentric JV with Volvo AB and with a clear technology roadmap, Daimler Truck is committed to bringing these vehicles to the market.

The key challenge for FCEV technology is infrastructure. But as part of its strategy to kick-start infrastructure for both BEV and FCEV vehicles, Daimler Truck announced today a new partnership with Shell. Daimler Truck and Shell have signed an agreement to jointly drive hydrogen-based fuel-cell trucking for decarbonizing road freight in Europe. Both companies are committed on building-up a truck-suitable hydrogen-refueling infrastructure and bringing fuel-cell trucks in customer hands.