DTNA Gets $40 Million from US DoE

Daimler Trucks North America announced last week it has received a $40 million funding from the US Department of Energy (DoE), through the 21st Century Truck Technology Partnership, to be used for commercial vehicle and diesel engine development. This is the largest of the nine project awards totaling $115 million given by the DoE to US-based OEMs for research.

“This grant from the U.S. Department of Energy is essential for us, and will enable our truck and drive technologies to make great progress for the benefit of the environment and the commercial vehicles industry,” Martin Daum, Daimler Trucks North America CEO said in a release.

“We see this as acknowledgement of our continuous commitment to make commercial vehicle transportation as environmentally friendly and as fuel efficient as possible.”

“Forward-thinking programs like this one help to make progress in the development of trucks and fully explore the ‘stretch’ technologies that can lead to the next level of product innovation.” Elmar Boeckenhoff, DTNA Engineering and Technology vice president added.

DTNA will use the money to research fuel-efficient engines and vehicles and build them by using an environmental approach. Their main focus will be to build on the BlueTec engines, already designed to meet EPA 2010 emissions standards.

Compared to the 2007 EPA standards, the new engines provide a fuel economy improvement of up to five percent and reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by more than 80 percent.

So far, more than 250,000 trucks and buses use BlueTec engines in Europe, having totaled about 25 million miles.