From left: Satoshi Ogiso, President and CEO of Hino Motors; Koji Sato, President and CEO of Toyota Motor Corp.; Martin Daum, CEO of Daimler Truck AG; Karl Deppen CEO of Daimler Truck Asia. (Daimler Truck AG)

Daimler Truck will join merging Japanese companies Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corp. and Hino Motors as part of an ecological tech alliance forged between themselves and their top stakeholders, the companies said May 30. 

Daimler Truck Holding, Mitsubishi Fuso, Hino and Toyota Motor Corp. announced the merger after concluding a memorandum of understanding focused on accelerating the development of advanced technologies. The focus will be on environmental, autonomous, connected and electric mobility technologies. They also aim to strengthen their commercial vehicle business globally. 

“We at Daimler Truck are very proud of our products, because trucks and buses keep the world moving,” Daimler Truck CEO Martin Daum said. “And soon they will even do so with zero emissions.

“So there is a great future ahead — and today’s announcement is a crucial step in making that future work economically and in leading sustainable transportation. The planned new company will be a major force in Southeast Asia and an important associate of the Daimler Truck family.”

Daimler and Toyota plan to contribute an equal investment into the holding company for the merger. They also plan to collaborate on the development of hydrogen reduction and other technologies to support the competitiveness of the new company. The merger aims to create synergies to advance their technological and global market plans.

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Martin Daum

Daum 

“This collaboration among our four companies is a partnership for creating the future of commercial vehicles in Japan and the future of mobility society,” Toyota CEO Koji Sato said. “Our four companies will work together with a shared vision of achieving carbon neutrality by strengthening CASE technologies and of changing the future of commercial vehicles and building the future together by solving social issues.”

Details on the scope and nature of the collaboration including the name, location, shareholding ratio and corporate structure of the new holding company will be decided over the next 18 months. The parties hope to sign a definitive agreements in the first quarter of 2024. They also aim to close the transaction by the end of next year. 

“We will unite our aspirations to ‘support mobility and contribute to society’ and, hand in hand, accelerate advanced technology development in order to overcome the increasingly fierce global competition,” Hino CEO Satoshi Ogiso said. “Through these efforts, we will strive to tackle societal challenges such as achieving carbon neutrality.”

Hino is working to rebuild its stature in the industry after the company’s disclosure last year that it had falsified emissions data beginning as early as 2003.