As on-highway sales slump, DTNA sees opportunity for Western Star

The leaders of Daimler Truck North America are aiming to grow their share of the heavy-duty vocational market by more than 10 points between now and 2030, they told investors and analysts July 8.

Speaking to a gathering at the company’s Cleveland, North Carolina, plant, holding company President and CEO Karin Rådström and DTNA Chief Executive John O’Leary said they aim to grow sales of Western Star vocational trucks used in construction, logging, and similar applications by more than 60% by 2024. That, they said, should grow Western Star’s market share past 35% from last year’s 24%—which was up from 20% in 2021.

“We have a compelling product offering and our customers love it,” O’Leary said. “The market is less volatile compared to the on-highway segment [and has] higher average selling points, higher parts sales, and long-term relationships.”

Daimler teams build Western Star models in Portland, Oregon, and Cleveland. The latter recently celebrated the 850,000th truck rolling off its line. Last year, it shifted its focus to vocational models as the market for those models strengthened, while demand for on-highway trucks began to wane.

See also: 'Pretty good story’: Daimler to boost Western Star capacity from late 2023

The on-highway market isn’t showing signs of improving soon: The day before hosting the investment community in North Carolina, Daimler Truck executives said second-quarter sales in North America had fallen 20% from the same period of 2024 to nearly 38,600. Globally, the company’s Q2 sales slipped 5% year over year.

Among the other items Rådström, O’Leary, and CFO Eva Scherer addressed during the Daimler Capital Markets Day presentation were:

• After several post-COVID years in which OEMs had pricing power, the momentum has now swung almost entirely in the other direction. Said O’Leary: “The customer has pricing power because we have capacity, our competitors do, everybody’s very reluctant to give up on that capacity.”
• While Daimler executives haven’t yet resorted to job cuts at the company’s North American operations—although Scherer did address that possibility in May—they are preparing to cut 5,000 jobs in Germany by 2030 as part of a broader, $1 billion-plus cost-cutting plan in Europe.
• Rådström told investors her team thinks autonomous trucking could be a $3 billion business in North America for Daimler Truck by 2030, even as it reduces fleets' total cost of ownership by up to 20%. The U.S., she said, is "the perfect place" for developing autonomous technologies because of its long driving distances, higher driver wages, and favorable regulations.
• A few days after President Donald Trump began issuing his latest series of tariff declarations and threats, O’Leary said the Daimler Truck team still isn’t sure how possible tariffs citing national security threats—so-called Section 232 measures—might affect the company’s use of Mexican parts and assemblies: “Once it’s clear, then we’re on it and we’ve game-planned different scenarios. But it’s still not clear.”

Shares of Daimler Truck (Ticker: DTG) rose more than 1% July 8. They’re also up slightly over the past six months, and the company’s market capitalization is now about $37 billion.