Daimler Trucks N America’s new Freightliner Cascadia is its most advanced truck yet

Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA) has revealed its new flagship -- the new Freightliner Cascadia – in the heavy-duty Class 8 in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

With this truck, Freightliner continues the successful path of the predecessors Cascadia and Cascadia Evolution. Around $300 million investment, 800 engineers and 5 years of R&D has seen the new Cascadia sets even higher standards in connectivity, fuel efficiency and safety technologies. It will be available from January 2017 onwards.

With 412,000 units sold since the launch of the first Cascadia in 2007, the Cascadia is by far the best-selling Class 8 truck in the NAFTA region. And with a market share of approximately 43 percent, Daimler Trucks North America is the biggest truck producer in the U.S. and Canada.

“Our new Freightliner is the most connected truck we have ever built. It proves the consistent way in which the technology strategy of Freightliner has developed in the U.S. Already today, more than 180,000 of our trucks in North America are online. With our new Cascadia this number will increase dramatically,” said Dr. Wolfgang Bernhard, member of the Daimler AG board responsible for Trucks and Buses.

Martin Daum, president and CEO of Daimler Trucks North America added: “The new Cascadia is more than an update of past successes. It pushes fuel efficiency, connectivity, and safety technology to a new level. Once more, we underline the technological leadership of Daimler Trucks in North America and we again reduced the real Cost of Ownership for our customers.”

The most fuel efficient Freightliner truck ever

When developing the new Cascadia, engineers set a priority goal of achieving significant fuel savings. Fresh, aerodynamic shape with dozens of sleek new updates and advanced powertrain components contributes to increased fuel efficiency by up to 8 percent over a 2016 Cascadia Evolution. One key benefit of the new Cascadia is its integrated powertrain. Unlike in Europe, it is quite common in the North American commercial vehicle market that the customer has third party aggregates in its trucks. Daimler Trucks says it is offering American customers a perfectly harmonised powertrain crafted with own engines, transmissions and axles.

High on connectivity and safety

When it comes to connectivity, the new Cascadia sets the benchmark with an exclusively used platform. The new Detroit Connect Analytics builds on the well-proven features, such as the Virtual Technician remote diagnostic service. The ‘Virtual Technician’ sends a technical snapshot of the engine’s status to the Customer Service Center when warning lights turn on to help identify and solve the problem.

Detroit Connect Analytics further deepens the connection between the fleet’s management, the driver and the vehicle. Analytics provides users with on-demand, automated fuel efficiency and safety analysis. By quickly identifying behaviors, trends, root causes, and key insights on fuel consumption as well as safety performance data across the fleet repair costs are reduced and operating times increased.

Furthermore, the new Cascadia comes with brand new safety technologies. The new full LED system allows for an impressive field of view in nighttime and bad weather conditions. It enables drivers to better distinguish objects in the road as well as reduce eyestrain. The optional Detroit Assurance 4.0 suite of safety systems includes Active Brake Assist that now provides full braking on stationary objects, Adaptive Cruise Control, and Lane Departure Warning.