Daimler Trucks sets up fuel cell subsidiary

Daimler Truck AG is setting up a new subsidiary to fast-track series production of fuel cell technology.

The move is a first step towards the planned 50/50 joint venture with Volvo Group for the development and sale of fuel cell systems. 

Daimler Truck Fuel Cell GmbH & Co. KG, led by managing directors Dr. Andreas Gorbach and Prof. Christian Mohrdieck, brings the group’s organisational and legal framework together for the operation.

Gorbach and Mohrdieck have extensive experience with conventional and alternative drive systems, especially fuel cell.

Gorbach has already held a senior management position for all fuel cell matters at Daimler Truck AG since the beginning of May this year.

Mohrdieck has been in charge of fuel cell development at Daimler Group since 2003 and is managing director of the current fuel cell development unit which will be allocated to the new subsidiary.

Daimler Truck AG chair Martin Daum

says the “fuel cell is a crucial CO2-neutral solution for trucks in heavy long-distance transport”.

“We and our future joint venture partner, Volvo Group, are convinced of this,” he says.

“We are determined to jointly tackle the development and series production of fuel cells and are now taking major steps with all the necessary preparations for the planned joint venture.

“The establishment of Daimler Truck Fuel Cell GmbH & Co. KG is a very special milestone for our company, because our new subsidiary is to be the immediate predecessor organisation of the joint venture.

“In it, we will now bring together the great expertise and enormous wealth of experience from several decades of development work on fuel cells at Daimler – and combine it with the right know-how in connection with trucks,” Daum says.

“I am very pleased that with Dr. Andreas Gorbach and Prof. Dr. Christian Mohrdieck, we have been able to gain two very experienced Daimler colleagues for the management of Daimler Truck Fuel Cell GmbH & Co. KG.

“The two of them are characterised both by profound expertise in the field of conventional and alternative drive systems and fuel cells, and by the right pioneering spirit to successfully build up the new entity and transfer it to the planned joint venture,” he says.