Daimler’s Patterson: would still invest in product innovation if had to do it over

“It’s in the DNA of Daimler Trucks to continue to push the envelope on technology and on product innovation, always focusing on what makes our customers more profitable, more efficient and hopefully more loyal to Daimler" says company president Chris Patterson.

By LYNDON FINNEY
The Trucker Staff

10/7/2008

NEW ORLEANS — Even if the company had known that the industry was facing one of its worst economic setbacks ever, Daimler Trucks North America would still have invested in new products, company president Chris Patterson said Monday night at the American Trucking Associations' annual Management Conference and Exhibition here.

“We put over $1.5 billion into new products getting ready for what we thought were going to be pretty good years in 2008 and 2009 such as the DD (Detroit Diesel) 15 and DD13, the Freightliner Cascadia, the Sterling Ultrashift,” Patterson told a gathering of Daimler customers. “And we’re investing an additional $400 million in a brand new plant in Mexico.”

Patterson said when the company made the decision to invest in the new products it was also facing $500 billion in investments just to meet the regulatory requirements for new emissions standards.

“Would we have done all this if we’d known a couple of years ago how remote the market recovery was going to be?” he asked rhetorically.

Patterson then answered his own question.

“We’ve reflected on that and you might be surprised to know the answer is yes,” he said. “It’s in the DNA of Daimler Trucks to continue to push the envelope on technology and on product innovation, always focusing on what makes our customers more profitable, more efficient and hopefully more loyal to Daimler. Certainly we would have tailored our industrial capacity to the smaller markets we expect to face in the next couple of years and maybe trim some product programs.”

Then Patterson looked to a time when the industry would return to more normal days. 

“There are some things we know for certain — the freight has to move,” he said. “And whatever level of activity emerges after these shocks we’re experiencing subside, over 80 percent of it is going to be moved by trucks. And the longer we run old trucks, the more new trucks we’re going to need to replace them when replacement becomes unavoidable, which means that characteristic spring-back that we in our industry have become used to.”