Daimler’s first two eM2 electric box trucks have officially hit the road

Daimler Truck North America has delivered its first battery-electric Freightliner eM2 trucks to a New York-based trucking company.

Series production of the medium-duty electric trucks started at the end of 2023.

The Freightliner eM2, made at Daimler Truck North America’s factory in Portland, Oregon, is being distributed to customers across the US.

Latham, New York-based PITT OHIO is the first company to deploy Daimler’s eM2 – it’s added two of the Class 7 electric trucks to its fleet. They’ll operate out of PITT OHIO’s Cleveland, Ohio, terminal and support the company’s Less-Than-Truckload (LTL) freight shipping business.

The eM2 is built on the well-established Freightliner M2 106 Plus platform. It features a proprietary, fully integrated, battery electric Detroit ePowertrain. 

Its design places electric motors and a two-speed transmission directly on the drive axles, which Daimler says results in minimized energy cost per mile. The Class 7 dual-motor variant offers up to 255 continuous horsepower, supported by a 291 kWh battery, providing a range of around 250 miles on a single charge.

Daimler’s electric delivery box truck features Detroit Connect, a connected vehicle solution that allows real-time battery health monitoring, charging status, and energy usage. That enables efficient route planning, energy optimization, and post-trip data analysis to improve overall energy efficiency.

My City Dwellers colleague Jameson Dow drove the eM2 in May 2021 – when Daimler said that it would be widely available in April 2023, so they’re, erm, about two years off the mark – and said that its nimbleness made it feel more like driving a car, not a medium-duty truck. You can read more about his first drive experience here.

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