DTNA to open new U.S. truck manufacturing plant in 2029

The truck and bus maker is still in the process of deciding on a site for the facility. (Daimler Truck North America)

Daimler Truck North America plans to build an additional truck manufacturing plant in the United States that is expected to begin operations in 2029, the company said Aug. 6, citing growing demand.

The truck and bus maker is still in the process of deciding on a site for the facility, construction of which is scheduled to begin by the end of 2026. CEO John O’Leary told reporters the plant would be the company’s largest truck manufacturing facility in the United States when up and running.

DTNA’s Cleveland plant in North Carolina is currently the company’s largest manufacturing site in the U.S., although a majority of the trucks the parent company of Freightliner and Western Star builds in North America are assembled in Mexico, where it owns two plants.

Location TBD

Siting in the southeastern U.S., particularly the Carolinas, is a heavy favorite for the greenfield facility because North Carolina has long been a production nucleus for DTNA and Freightliner. The company said it is looking at multiple options.

Alongside the Cleveland plant, the Mount Holly facility — which opened in 1979 — and the Gastonia plant are also in the Tar Heel State.

The truck maker said Aug. 6 that key considerations in choosing the site would include the ability to access and support a stable and efficient supply chain and skilled workforce, transportation and logistics infrastructure, a favorable business environment and alignment with the company’s long-term manufacturing strategy.

DTNA is set to boost the workforce at its Mount Holly facility in the shorter term, O’Leary told Transport Topics at the start of July, bringing back 400 employees laid off in July 2025 as part of 2,000 production plant job cuts across North American DTNA manufacturing facilities.

The company also plans to hire an additional 200 workers at Mount Holly by the end of 2026 as part of plans to add a second shift.

DTNA divisions Thomas Built Buses and Freightliner Custom Chassis operate nearby facilities in High Point, N.C., and Gaffney, S.C.

But O’Leary said: “It’s very difficult to just kind of gut a plant and then reconfigure it with new technology. It’s far easier to do it from a greenfield. And we felt the time was right for that.”

Not coincidentally, the announcement comes shortly after DTNA revealed the Swan Island plant in Portland, Ore., will close Oct. 30. The closure will end Freightliner manufacturing in the Rose City for the first time since 1947.

DTNA will move manufacturing of the Western Star X-Series, Freightliner eCascadia and Freightliner eM2 trucks to North Carolina and South Carolina with the aim of optimizing the Daimler Truck unit’s production network, the company said in late July.

Long-term ambitions

Speaking to reporters from Stuttgart after winning Daimler Truck approval for the plant, O’Leary said the plans took a number of years to formulate and were part of long-term ambitions to retain and build market share, rather than a response to the Trump administration’s tariff policies.

“Every time you think of how you run a business, if you stand still, it’s kind of like a shark, you die. You have to constantly be moving forward. We continually invest in our products. We’ve got new truck models coming out all the time, different options, all kinds of things that we do,” he said.

Freightliner and Western Star captured a combined 40.8% share of 2025 Class 8 sales and the brands’ market share so far in 2026 is a cumulative 39.6%, according to Omdia Automotive data.

Image

O'Leary speaks with TT reporters in Washington on July 9. (Seth Clevenger/Transport Topics)

But Daimler Truck on July 22 raised its full-year 2026 truck and bus sales guidance for DTNA by 10,000 vehicles to 160,000-180,000 vehicles, citing improving demand based on the upswing in the freight market since the beginning of 2026.

DTNA’s sales of trucks and buses rose 8% year over year in Q2, the first quarterly sales increase compared with a year-ago period in six quarters. The company sold 41,687 vehicles in Q2, compared with 38,580 trucks and school buses in the year-ago period. Sales also climbed 41.6% compared with the first three months of 2026 on greater carrier confidence.

As a result, the decision to build the plant is not predicated on tariffs on medium- and heavy-duty trucks and parts as well as steel, aluminum and rubber, but on many other factors, O’Leary said.

“I can’t say that tariffs [were] completely ignored, but there’s several other factors that are far more important,” he said during the reporter briefing. “Tariffs are certainly a part of the ecosystem that we operate in today. However, this is a longer-term decision, and the plant won’t be completed until late ’29.”