Daimler AG's Freightliner SC plant gets 2,000 truck UPS order

WILMINGTON, N.C. May 15, 2008; Jim Brumm writing for Reuters reported that a large order for trucks, including hybrid electric vehicles, by United Parcel Service Inc will mean steady work for the Freightliner Custom Chassis Corp plant in Gaffney, South Carolina, over the next eight or nine months, a company spokesman said.

It is not clear, though, whether the order for 2,000 delivery vans, including 200 hybrid electric vehicles and 300 vehicles running on compressed natural gas, will lead to new hiring at the plant, said Jonathan Randall, director of sales and marketing for Freightliner, the U.S. truck unit of German carmaker Daimler AG.

Randall said on Wednesday night that 1,500 trucks in the order would have conventional diesel engines. Work on the conventional diesels will start before the end of the month, he said.

In contrast, the Daimler division's plant 90 miles to the northeast, in Cleveland, North Carolina, is expected to lay off about 1,500 workers in early June when operations are reduced to one shift a day from two shifts, the company said in April.

Randall did not have any information on the North Carolina plant.

In a statement released last month, Freightliner said the layoffs could be canceled if the market recovers enough by June to support two shifts at the plant.

The Portland, Oregon-based company laid off about 1,200 workers in the spring of 2007 when it went to two shifts from three.

Officials of both companies declined to discuss the value of UPS's Freightliner order.

Daimler Truck North America says the hybrid-electric engines achieve a 400 percent improvement in fuel economy and a 90 percent reduction in emissions compared with non-hybrid versions.

UPS said the 200 hybrid electric trucks are expected to save 176,000 gallons of fuel a year and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1,786 metric tons each year.

That is equivalent to taking almost 100 conventional UPS trucks off the roads for a year, it said.

UPS said the new order of 500 fuel-efficient vans means its alternative fuel fleet, already the largest such fleet in the United States, will grow 30 percent to 2,218 vehicles.

Editing for Reuters by Michael Christie and Andre Grenon