Renewed decrease in unit sales in the NAFTA region
Daimler Trucks is the leading truck supplier also in North America. Our Freightliner brand mainly supplies trucks for long-distance haulage, while Western Star covers the segment of premium heavy-duty trucks for long-distance haulage and construction applications. In addition, Daimler Trucks North America produces school buses of the Thomas Thomas Built Buses brand.
In October, Daimler Trucks North America presented a comprehensive plan for the optimization and repositioning of its business operations. One aspect of the plan is the discontinuation of the Sterling production range as of March 2009 in order to concentrate our development and distribution resources on the Freightliner and Western Star brands. That will allow us to create more innovations to promote safety, environmental friendliness and customer utility, so that we can sustainably consolidate Daimler Trucks’ leading position in the North American commercial vehicle market. Beginning in 2011, these measures should improve earnings by US $900 million a year.
The market recovery that was originally expected for the NAFTA region in the second half of 2008 did not materialize. Instead, the financial crisis and the subsequent economic slowdown led to further market contraction. As a result of this difficult market environment, unit sales by the Trucks NAFTA unit decreased by 12% to 104,300 vehicles in the year under review. With a market share for Class 8 trucks of 30.9%, we managed to maintain our market leadership in the NAFTA region. Our strong market position for heavy-duty trucks is primarily based on the success of the Freightliner Cascadia . The Cascadia is one of the most high-performing, economical and driver-friendly semitrailer trucks on the US market. In the medium-duty segment, the business unit captured a 20.7% share of the NAFTA market.
In 2008, Daimler Trucks also recorded major successes in the NAFTA region with regard to its »Shaping Future Transportation« initiative. As part of its fleet expansion, the US parcel delivery company, UPS, awarded Freightliner the biggest contract to date for commercial vehicles using alternative drive systems and fuels.
Beginning in 2009, the 200 hybrid vehicles and 300 natural-gas-powered trucks will help ensure that UPS can continue to serve its customers reliably in an environmentally friendly and fuel-efficient manner. In California, the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles have ordered more than 230 natural-gas-powered trucks from Daimler Trucks North America. This is an important step in the state-supported “Clean Truck Program” for replacing older, high-emission vehicles.
