Germany/Stuttgart, June 20, 2012

CO2 Milestone Reached in the U.S

Daimler Commercial Vehicles Impress
During Extensive Test Drive

When compared to the current model, the new heavy-duty truck Freightliner Cascadia Evolution consumes up to 7 percent less fuel. These fuel savings were confirmed by an independent agency in the course of a one-week drive across the U.S. under real-life conditions.

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The 2,400-mile (almost 4,000 km) route led from San Diego, California, to Gastonia, North Carolina. During the test, the two heavy-duty semitrailer trucks – weighing approximately 34 tons or 76,000 lbs. each – traveled at an average speed of 62 mph (around 100 km/h).

According to Martin Daum, two key factors led to the positive result of this Evolution of Efficiency Tour: “The tremendous fuel savings of the new Freightliner Cascadia are primarily due to the new Detroit DD15 engine as well as the aerodynamic measures. The fuel efficiency drive was a unique opportunity for us to conduct a test under real-life conditions of our latest technologies and the tremendous fuel saving potential they offer to our customers.”

The DD15 engine of the Detroit brand, which is part of Daimler, is a turbocharged inline six-cylinder engine with 14.6 liters of displacement. As with all Detroit engines, it is equipped with Daimler BlueTec technology, which reduces emissions to near-zero levels and even falls below the EPA 10 emissions standard for the NAFTA region (comparable to Euro VI).

Freightliner trucks comply with Greenhouse Gas 2014 regulations

Already at the beginning of this year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) certified the Daimler commercial vehicles subsidiary’s complete portfolio of long-distance trucks, medium-duty trucks, and vocational vehicles of the Freightliner and Western Star brands as fully compliant
with the Greenhouse Gas 2014 (GHG14) regulations.

This means that DTNA is leading in the U.S. commercial vehicles industry. The company already meets the standards set by the EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which will not go into effect until the beginning of 2014. These regulations aim to permanently reduce the green-house gas emissions of heavy- and medium-duty trucks. The EPA believes that through the new GHG14 regulations, trucks and buses of the model years 2014 through 2018 are projected to reduce oil consumption by 530 million barrels and greenhouse gas emissions by 270 million metric tons.