When a new CEO takes over a company, there’s a lot of hype about navigating evolving markets, understanding customers’ changing needs and redefining the company’s role in the industry. But this time it’s different. This time it’s not an exaggeration. It’s a reality. John O’Leary, President and CEO of Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA), takes the reins at a time when electric trucks are no longer a matter of “what ifs,” but rather one of “how much do you want?” Overall sustainability is a talking point with legs for fleets across the country. Demand for heavy trucks has reached near-record levels with no end in sight as supply chain issues challenge nearly every company in every sector.
It’s a risky time in trucking, but it’s also a time full of innovation and serious development of trucking equipment and solutions. For DTNA, this is also a time of reinvention. The past year has seen the company shift its focus (and internal structure) from brand to app. This year, the company will go further as Daimler Trucks will separate its business from Mercedes-Benz.
I caught up with O’Leary just before his 100th day as CEO of DTNA. These were my top three takeaways.
1. Electric long toy truck
Excitement for electric trucks is a double-edged sword. It’s essential for building orders and gaining fleet interest, but it can quickly turn into something it’s not: instantly world-changing technology.
“Sometimes, when you have conversations with people about battery electric trucks, it turns into almost an all-or-nothing decision. It’s as if the expectation is that in the next three or four years, everything will be electric. It’s not going to happen like that.” “It will take a long period of time,” O’Leary said. “There is still a lot of room for internal combustion engines for many years. That’s why we remain very interested in medium duty through our partnership with Cummins. On the heavy side, we have a great product there with the Detroit DD13 and DD15 engines.
“For us, it’s not a matter of either or either,” he continued. “It’s both.” “You have to have the current product because that’s what customers want. A truck is just a tool to make money, so we provide these tools to customers. If a man wants a wrench, don’t give him a screwdriver.
Currently, it is still early days in the development of electric trucks, which are still outpaced by demand for diesel. O’Leary noted that the continued development of electric trucks will be driven by customer demand.
How about the development of electric hydrogen fuel truck? Daimler Trucks AG (parent company of DTNA led by Martin Daum) and Volvo Group, two strong competitors in the market, have come together to create a joint venture to develop hydrogen fuel cells for commercial use. Where does O’Leary see this play?
“I would say that hydrogen, at the moment, is more of a European concept in terms of the investment that players are making in the industry. I don’t mean just the OEMs, but also… some of the other companies out there. They see it as a A real way forward.” “I think, ultimately, hydrogen fuel cells will come to the U.S. in the long term, and that makes a lot of sense just in terms of the energy density that hydrogen has versus battery electric. It will come eventually, but I think it will be slower. Again, as long as you have diesel products that can cover thousands of miles, there’s no real need for hydrogen right away. But again, it will eventually come with time. I have no doubt about that.”
2. Introducing Daimler trucks to the market in general
O’Leary doubled down on the importance of DTNA’s professional applications. The Western Star 49X last fall was just the first product launched under the OEM’s application-focused market approach. There is more to come.
“Historically, for a long time we’ve tried to convince people that it’s great to be an off-road force, but we can also build a great vocational truck,” O’Leary said. “They looked at us as just a long-term off-road company. So we said, ‘Look, we’ve got to find a better way; build a better mousetrap.’
“It means we are investing seriously (in vocational products); the only way we can do that is to change our focus and allocate resources,” he said. “It’s not about people on the highways pretending to know a little about vocational training. That means going out and hiring people, in some cases from competitors, who are very savvy about the professional market and bring that knowledge and that experience and those client relationships. And then that goes into product design.
“We don’t take a highway product, add more chrome and a different suspension, and call it professional. The Western Star 49X has been professional from the ground up.
This strategy reflects O’Leary’s broader focus on equipment tailored to customer needs.
“It’s about having conversations with customers, and it starts with listening,” he said. “You have to listen, and not just try to bury them with cool new products that some engineers think are cool, but aren’t practical to use. You have to listen to what the customer wants, and then, as an organization, you have to respond accordingly.”
3. It’s as much about the people as it is about the equipment
There has been significant change in the ranks of DTNA leadership with announcements of promotions and position changes occurring almost weekly. This reflects DTNA’s focus on increasing its leadership capacity, O’Leary noted.
“We have a lot of people in this company that we’ve just hired in recent years, and they deserve amazing leadership,” he said. “The people we have now on our operating committee have this level of ability. We have done great since 2010, and we want to keep it going.”
This momentum will continue with Daimler Trucks’ separation from Mercedes-Benz to become its own business entity, potentially providing more autonomy for the development of trucking products and solutions. But the impact will be felt first and foremost globally within the organization, as O’Leary explained:
“Daimler is a huge global multinational company run mainly by Mercedes-Benz Cars employees; a tremendous passenger car company with a great deal of history and success, but as a truck group, we ended up expending a lot of energy and a lot of momentum just explaining the difference between making trucks and cars to the people at Passenger cars. What’s different about the customer profile? Why should we invest where we need to? Why is it different from the thought process they would use to invest in passenger cars? And so on and so forth. It’s a bigger deal in Europe, quite frankly, because then They touch on things like the systems people use for both cars and trucks at dealerships and within the company and the way people are compensated.
Context: In Europe, a dealer that sells the Mercedes-Benz Actros 8 Series (MB’s equivalent of the Freightliner Cascadia) also sells the S-Class; Whereas here, we obviously have different dealerships for trucks and cars.
“For us in North America, it’s not a big deal, but it definitely helps,” O’Leary said. “We will take all the help we can get in terms of having a greater opportunity to focus on our customers and our products.”
