Daimler Truck AG

And of course there's good old Toyota, traditionally the great bastion of the hydrogen delusion.

They recently announced plans to join Daimler Truck and Volvo's fuel cell joint venture Cellcentric.

Then in September, Daimler, Volvo, Toyota, Bosch, Air Liquide, Total Energies and several other companies announced a new initiative aimed at accelerating hydrogen-powered heavy trucks across Europe.

Long term viewers of this channel will no doubt have seen previous videos where I've spoken to industry experts who have carefully and patiently explained why hydrogen should be considered only for use as a chemical, not as a fuel.

Following the presentation of the 2026 Women in Treasury and Finance Awards, Treasury Today Group's Liz Lumley introduced this year's panellists.

So I'm joined by Margaret Hayward-Jones from Standard Chartered, Vera Keek-Steiner from JPMorgan, Carol Thurn here from Halion and Michelle Ang from Daimler Truck.

Liz asked Veronique about her views on the findings of this year's Global Equity Study.

I think that what I liked about the study, and I'm just pulling out the numbers so I get the figure right, but 78% of our respondents felt greater diversity drives better performance.

Torq is an independent subsidiary of Daimler Trucks and is developing level four autonomous driving technologies integrated into Freightliner Trucks with commercial availability targeted for 2027.

Today, we'll discuss how autonomous trucking has evolved, what differentiates torque's technology, and why its relationship with Daimler Truck could provide a competitive advantage, and what the economics of replacing a conventional truck and driver with an autonomous vehicle could ultimately look like.

We also explore whether tightening trucking capacity and driver availability could accelerate adoption and what autonomy could mean for carriers, drivers, shippers, and freight markets.

Andrew, welcome to Talking Transports.

That's one model.

There's another model that's buying multiple vehicles and retrofitting them and selling them as a reseller.

We're fortunate, and you mentioned our relationship with Daimler Truck, and specifically here in North America, Daimler Truck North America, and their kind of flagship product, the Cascadia.

We have the benefit of being very closely integrated with an OEM from day one of this journey, right? So not just from a technical perspective, but how do we engage customers? How do we ensure that when we put that truck on the road, it does meet the burdens of trucking, right? And trucking is hard, right? And these are, you know, hundreds and thousands of miles that you need to provide value in that vehicle.

Volvo Trucks, for example, has delivered thousands of battery electric trucks globally and has introduced long distance electric models capable of ranges approaching 600 kilometres with high power charging.

Meanwhile, Daimler Truck has begun series production of its E-Actros 600, one of the first electric heavy trucks designed specifically for long-haul freight.

The vehicles are still relatively expensive to buy and infrastructure remains limited, but they represent a clear shift in strategy among the industry's largest manufacturers.

So the question is no longer whether electric trucks are technically feasible.

The EU wants to cap sales of Chinese hybrids by the end of this year, and no doubt Chinese automakers want to rack up as many sales before any restrictions are put in place.

Truck makers Daimler Truck and MAN, which is owned by Volkswagen, have been ordered by a judge in Germany to reimburse customers who were overcharged in a price-fixing cartel, which ran between 1997 and 2009.

Back in 2016, the companies, along with other truck makers who were part of the scheme, agreed to pay EU regulators nearly 3 billion euros for fixing prices.

Now, Daimler and MAN are facing civil claims, many of which have been consolidated, with one plaintiff group alone filing for about 2 billion euros.

Juergen, while we were preparing for this conversation, we said we probably need half a day to go through all the different questions and things that we can talk about.

So we're going to try to make this as insightful as possible because there's so much to unpack, right? Before we start firing away, can you share a little bit more about your role as a CHRO of Daimler Truck and the current landscape that you're operating in? And also give a little bit of context.

How big is Daimler Truck?

Yeah, talking about Daimler Truck, and maybe this is not known by everyone.

Daimler is maybe known in general.

Daimler Truck is actually, I would say, the market leader and biggest company when it comes to trucks and buses.

Probably the brands are more known than Daimler Truck.

So in Europe, in Asia, and in South America, Africa, we are basically acting with Mercedes-Benz, and I assume that Mercedes-Benz is probably well known as a brand.

Exactly.

And look at Daimler Truck.

They're synchronizing global finance with a dual-track tech strategy.

They're not just selling iron, they're selling the efficiency package.

Under Fain, the UAW has again become a fighting union, winning record agreements at the big three automakers, following a successful stand-up strike, delivering 25% wage increases, eliminating wage tiers, restoring cost of living adjustments, securing bonuses for retirees for the first time in decades, and winning the right to strike over product commitments and bringing electric vehicle battery production under the union's master agreements.

Fane's UAW also secured life-changing contracts at Daimler Truck, American Axle, Allison Transmission, Cornell University, and Rolls-Royce, along with unionizing the workers at Volkswagen's sole U.S. assembly plant in Tennessee, which became the first foreign-owned southern auto plant to be organized in U.S. history.

Fein has also expanded the UAW's horizons in terms of international solidarity, making it the largest union to call for a ceasefire in Gaza in 2023.

In response, and many say in retaliation, a federal monitor was appointed to oversee the union and, some allege, to sabotage Fein's governing program.

This is a slander against Lehman, whose campaign the DSA and labor notes opposed, claiming his platform of abolishing the bureaucracy and transferring powers to workers was anti-union.

That support has been earned, Brooks declares, citing life-changing contracts at Daimler Truck, American Axle, Allison Transmission, Cornell University, and Rolls-Royce.

The result was indeed earned, but it is not the one Brooks describes.

What the apparatus earned was the mass rejection of the membership.