Daimler Truck North America is putting its money where its mouth is by using its own electric semi trucks to transport auto parts.

Daimler Truck North America and its own electric semis

The Portland, Oregon-based company launched its Freightliner eCascadia battery electric semi-trucks for customers in 2022. Now, it’s deploying an initial four eCascadias to support its production and aftermarket operations across North America.

Daimler Truck North America’s electric semis will pick up parts from suppliers in the Pacific Northwest and deliver them to its consolidation center in Portland. The parts will then be shipped to its North American factories and aftermarket parts distribution centers that serve customers in the US and Canada.

The four eCascadias will charge at Daimler’s “Electric Island,” a heavy-duty electric truck charging, development, and testing site that opened in 2021 at the company’s headquarters.

The eCascadia comes in 315 or 475kWh configurations and has up to 250 miles of range while carrying approximately a 65,000-pound gross vehicle weight.

In 2020, the Portland truck factory where the eCascadia is built achieved carbon-neutral production with reduced energy consumption and the offset of onsite emissions. Daimler plans to incorporate carbon-neutral production at its remaining truck factories by 2025.

Electrek’s Take

Well, this certainly makes sense. If you want to sell electric semis, what better way to instill confidence in customers than demonstrating that you trust your product by deploying it yourself? Why would you sell eCascadias and then move the parts for those eCascadias around in diesel semi trucks if you didn’t have to?

This is the best form of authenticity. I hope Daimler quickly rolls out more of its own eCascadias and for longer trips, too.