Daimler Opens New Truck Plant in Mexico

Daimler Trucks North America LLC opens a $300 million plant in Saltillo, Mexico, today for the production of a new flagship Class 8 model.

The 1.3 million sq.-ft. (120,774 sq.-m) plant, which houses a production facility, logistics center, training center and administration offices, has capacity to build 30,000 Freightliner Cascadias annually.

“We are confident that with the Cascadia from Saltillo we will be able to fulfill our customers’ high expectations regarding product quality, operating costs, and reliability,” Andreas Renschler, member of the Daimler AG Board of Management and Head of Daimler Trucks, says in a statement.

“Saltillo offers both the manufacturing flexibility and the space for future expansion that will enable Daimler Trucks North America to respond to a rebound in the truck market.”

The Cascadia, destined for the U.S., Canada and Mexico, is due to go on sale in Mexico late this year.

Some 1,400 direct and another 200 indirect jobs will be created by the plant, as well as 1,100 supplier jobs, Daimler says.

The truck maker selected the site in Saltillo, in northern Mexico, due to its “proximity to raw material sources, suppliers, and customers, as well as good connections with the road and rail network.”

Daimler already operates a medium- and heavy-duty truck plant in Mexico that builds trucks for the domestic market, Latin America, U.S. and Canadian markets.

Daimler says the factory will be its most efficient, using the “most advanced lean-manufacturing processes in the truck building industry today.”

With a nod to the environment, Daimler says it will recycle more than 90% of all residual materials and waste generated by production processes, and use only electrically operated tugger trains for plant transportation. The truck maker also has installed solar windows and an onsite water-treatment system.