R\u00e5dstr\u00f6m said the defence business is developing \u201cfaster than we expected\u201d and is growing more quickly than Daimler Truck\u2019s commercial vehicle operation. That traditional business generated \u20ac45.9bn in sales during 2025 but have seen profits slump and margins tighten under the weight of US tariffs and an overall slower North American market.\u00a0<\/p>\n
R\u00e5dstr\u00f6m also argued the company\u2019s manufacturing scale gives it an edge over traditional defence contractors accustomed to smaller production runs. She said: \u201cwhat all the defence ministries need right now is more capacity and quite fast\u201d. Much of what Daimler is producing for defence contracts involves adapted versions of their existing vehicles.<\/p>\n
The specific technology crossover centres on autonomous. Militaries are pushing to deploy autonomous trucks in part to reduce personnel needs on the battlefield, both for safety and because recruitment becomes harder in drawn-out conflicts, driving development of remote-controlled driving and \u201cplatooning\u201d, where multiple trucks follow a single lead vehicle with a driver.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On this R\u00e5dstr\u00f6m said that \u201cthere are some overlaps on the learnings that we\u2019re doing now with our defence autonomous projects for the civil side as well\u201d. On the commercial vehicle side of the business, Daimler is looking to advance SAE Level 4 autonomy in response to growing fleet demand for self-driving alternatives as they reckon with worsening driver shortages.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Tight logistics margins are also pushing fleets towards autonomy, with driver wage costs representing around 40% of total expenses. Little surprise, then, that R\u00e5dstr\u00f6m considers autonomous capability the \u201cbiggest change\u201d facing the industry\u2014even more than decarbonisation. Daimler Truck aims to start delivering SAE Level 4-capable in designated US areas next year, with a wider rollout planned for 2028. She also praised the defence sector\u2019s development cycles moving faster than Daimler Truck\u2019s own processes, and called the battlefield a genuine testing ground for new software and hardware.<\/p>\n
The structural build-out behind these ambitions is already under way. Daimler Truck launched<\/a> a unified \u2018Daimler Truck Defence\u2019 brand in June, consolidating its global defence activities and backing the push with an investment in the hundreds of millions of euros. The portfolio currently draws on Mercedes-Benz Trucks\u2019 existing defence lineup but will expand to other brands inside the group. The W\u00f6rth am Rhein plant in Germany, and Molsheim in France, will form the backbone of its European defence manufacturing, integrating military variants directly into existing commercial production lines.<\/p>\n Recent contract wins include a Bundeswehr order for hundreds of logistics vehicles, a deal with the Canadian Armed Forces alongside General Dynamics Land Systems covering at least 1,500 trucks, and a framework agreement with the French Armed Forces via Arquus for 7,000 trucks based on the Zetros platform. Daimler Truck\u2019s global network of roughly 5,000 service locations also gives it a readiness advantage many pure-play that many defence contractors simply lack.<\/p>\n Daimler Truck\u2019s push sits inside a broader pattern of automotive players turning to defence as vehicle demand softens and factory capacity goes underused. In the US, GM is in talks<\/a> to supply Lockheed Martin, and Ford is discussing militarised F-Series trucks. In Germany, Volkswagen continues to weigh<\/a> whether to either close or repurpose its Osnabr\u00fcck plant for Iron Dome components.\u00a0<\/p>\n Daimler Truck\u2019s position stands out for having already attached a specific, accelerated revenue target and a dedicated global brand to the effort, rather than treating it as an exploratory side project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perhaps more than any other major automotive player, Daimler is deepening its roots within the defence sector. By…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21157],"tags":[3427,5420,26549],"class_list":["post-66426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-daimler-truck","tag-daimler-truck","tag-intelligence","tag-stewart-burnett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}