Freightliner and the economy.

As a lot of you know, i was called back to work this week from an extended layoff. My recall group<62 people> makes it near 900 people back at work. Well yesterday the company and uaw announced that they are recalling the last 250 on layoff on Aug 8th and hiring 250 off the street. This will add a 2nd shift and bump production from 62 trucks at day up to 80 in Aug and then to 100 a day in Sept. Last year or so there were 120 people in the entire plant building 8 trucks a day. We are now #1 in the industry again and are known as Daimler Trucks North America aka DTNA. Company wide at 4 plants they plan to add 1400 people. Did all the trucks on the road wear out or is the economy on a upswing?

 

Sorry about the run on, im posting from my not so smart phone.

 

That's what you want! Congrats again :up:

 

Congrats on getting back to work Gary!!! I'm still waiting..

 

I work at Mack, now owned by Volvo, and we are in the process of doing the same thing. I work in the engine assembly plant and we're going from 84 engines a day a year ago, to 84 couple of months ago to to 134, and curently at 200. we are going to I think around 260 a day and to full shifts about 700 people total. I was told the current truck fleet on the road today is on average a year older than it has been for a very long time. I hope the rest of the economy follows.

 

Freightliner announced 155 new jobs at their plant in Portland, OR

Good for you

Now, go stimulate the economy

 

Who's buyin 'em truck's, Chinese?

 

I dream of a Freightliner 45' garage Coach.

Seriously.

 

Akways good to hear about some good progress in the work area these days

 

Hmmmm.... there's an IH plant in Garland.... I wonder if they're hiring?

 

The economy is up a bit, plus trucks are not so much wearing out as most major carriers turn their trucks over every 2 years or so. Not to mention that Freightliner's market share has risen from about 30% to 35+ over the last year or two.

It doesn't hurt that the Detroit Diesel engines are getting the better fuel economy than Cummins either.

 

H8R go place that order, i'll be glad to do my part in building it. Chida I hope you get back to work soon. The funny thing is a lot of our stuff is going to S.America.

 

It doesn't hurt that the Detroit Diesel engines are getting the better fuel economy than Cummins either.[/QUOTE]

i haven't seen a Detroit in years. I do see alot of MBZ diesels useing DD electronics. Since Daimler Benz bought Freightliner and DD most of the other truck builders stop specing the DD/Benz motor.

 

Man if I had $300K I'd be on it. Could I special order it with one of the Cummins 600hp ISX motors? Dang....thats a lot of power.

 

Borrow the money from Dits then kill him. I guess you can order that engine package, i'm just a peon tho.

 

Most of what i read leading up to the release of the 2010 models was that alot of fleets would be postponing their new truck purchases until they saw how the new emissions were going to pan out. Early reports were " lower MPG and power losses" do to the EGR set up that most were going to. The other option was diesel exhaust fluid with requires an extra tank mounted on truck and a special fluid be purrchased to clean up the exhaust.( no infrastructure for this at the time, but it's the Euro way) . Either way it placed uncertainty in the minds of fleet owners. This act of the Gov. has knocked Cat. out of the "over the road" diesel engine supplier market. Glad you're back to work!

 

Urea injection? If so, it's already here on some automotive diesels. MB IIRC.

 

What trucks are they building? The relatively inexpensive tractors or the gazillion dollar, full on tractors?

A lot of people and companies stretched their current tractors as far as they could, now they need to replace them.

Now, if consumer spending increases. . .

 

My plant is building monster dump trucks and shit. Cleveland and Portland builds the big sleeper trucks, Mexico builds trucks that dont run. Gastonia is the parts manufacturing plant.

 

I think upswing. We're hiring 40+ positions at my company.