Freightliner is a brand of commercial vehicles founded in 1942 in Salt Lake City. At present, Freightliner Trucks is a subsidiary of Daimler AG which incorporated Freightliner in 1981. The trucks were supposed to fill the gap in vehicles with steep mountain climbing capacity. Now, the brand offers a variety of technologies including hybrid power generation, and is the leader in long-haul transportation sector.
Freightliner trucks are well known in pop culture due to their appearance in Coca-Cola advertisements. Every year ‘Holidays are coming’ to towns and cities with those particular trucks decorated with thousands of lights and rope lights along the truck’s body. This might be one of the best self-boosting marketing campaigns ever created as thousands of people gather at Coca-Cola Christmas tour stops every year, take pictures and there’s one sure thing present in each of them, the red Freightliner of course.
Beside the truck production, Freightliner also caters vans that are light commercial vehicles, for example, Freightliner Sprinter. Even though nowadays they are sold mainly as Mercedes-Benz brand which belongs to Daimler as well, in the beginning they were sold as Freightliners. In 1995 the jury of urban transport journalists elected the van as The International Van of the Year confirming its reliability, efficiency, safety and consideration towards the environment.
Freightliner is one of the manufacturers who understand the importance of green energy and electric vehicles. Therefore, as Daimler had already given its SmartForTwo the batteries from Tesla, the choice was obvious when Freightliner’s first walk-in van was being assembled. The important thing is that a green van like this generates savings due to no fuel costs and reduced maintenance and, all in all, will generate the same overall cost as a diesel-powered vehicle.