Daimler Truck shifting focus to diesel powertrains

17 July 2025

Daimler Truck hosted its Capital Market Day 2025 at the Truck Manufacturing Plant in Cleveland, North Carolina, earlier this month. At the event, company executives unveiled the “Stronger 2030” strategy, signaling that diesel will play a central role in Daimler Truck’s powertrain strategy, particularly in the North American market.

Under the updated strategy, Daimler Truck’s main focus will be “profitable growth”, cost reduction, and shareholder value. The company aims to achieve an adjusted return on sales (ROS) of more than 12% in its core Industrial Business. In Europe, the Cost Down Europe efficiency program will aim to reduce costs by more than €1 billion by 2030. The company has also announced a new share buyback program with a value of up to €2 billion over two years.

“Acknowledging evolving and unpredictable dynamics in external factors such as energy prices, subsidies and regulatory requirements as well as a divergence in the speed of decarbonization across Daimler Truck’s core markets, the Group is adapting its powertrain strategy,” Daimler said in a news release. Daimler Truck North America (DTNA) will aim to further grow its vocational and service offerings, while shifting focus to conventional diesel powertrains and ramping down investment in zero-emission powertrains.

Outside North America, the segment strategy of Mercedes-Benz Trucks includes four growth initiatives: doubling of the high-margin defense business, growing units of zero-emission vehicles to over 25,000 unit sales in Europe by 2030, growth in India in both the domestic and export markets, and strongly pushing the high-margin service business.

The plan includes a shift of production volume to a best-cost country and further measures leading to a “significant job reduction” in Germany by 2030. Following an agreement with the Works Council, the company will utilize natural attrition and expanded early retirement options to reduce positions in a socially responsible manner.

On the battery-electric side, Daimler will “pragmatically balance make or buy-decisions” and move to zero-emission platforms in line with the market uptake.

Daimler Truck’s hydrogen powertrain development is focused on Europe. However, progress in building out hydrogen refueling stations has been much slower than expected, the company said. Daimler Truck will postpone therefore the large-scale fuel cell industrialization and series production of hydrogen-powered trucks to the early thirties. Daimler GenH2 hydrogen trucks had started testing with customers in mid-2024, with series production originally planned for 2027.

Source: Daimler Truck | Transport Topics