DAF Trucks powers ahead as it marks 30 years of market leadership

DAF Trucks will next month celebrate 30 consecutive years of UK market leadership – and has no plans to rest on its laurels.

As well as launching upgraded models which offer greater efficiency, comfort and technology, the brand, which was named Fleet Manufacturer of the Year – Truck in the 2024 Fleet News Awards – the second consecutive year it has taken the honour – is powering ahead with its electric truck programme.

This involves offering a broad range of zero emission vehicles, launching a charging infrastructure division and taking part in a number of electric truck trials.

The strength of its current model line-up was also recognised at the event, which saw the DAF LF named Best Rigid Truck: up to 12 tonnes and the XD winning the Best Rigid Truck more than 12 tonnes category.

Last year also saw it launch an updated model range, offering a 3% improvement in efficiency over its predecessors, as well as improved driver comfort, and safety technologies.

“2025 Model Year is the next chapter in our new generation of DAF tricks,” says David Kiss, managing director of DAF Trucks. “The latest series of changes moves the needle.”

Last year also saw a change its structure to make it better suited to new market requirements – “with this we believe the organisation is able to adapt to things that are happening, as well as making better and faster use of new technologies”, adds Kiss – as well as continued investment in its dealer network.

It currently has 146 dealer locations (34 sales locations, 102 service locations and 10 TRP stores), operated by 13 dealer groups.

Since 2018, the network has added 132 workshop bays (2.64km of additional lane space), and since 2023, there have been £100 million dealer investments.

These include £12m by Ford & Slater Stockton on a new site which is planned for 2026, £5.5m by Adams Morey (Grenhous Grp) for a new facility which opened in November, £5.5m by Motus Bellshill Scotland for a new site due to open in the second half of this year, and £2m by HTC Greenford (London) in a new site which opened at the end of 2024.

The dealer network also increased its number of technicians. It now has 1663 technicians, an increase of 114 over 2023, while it took on a record 140 apprentices under its Heroes of Tomorrow programme. It also opened a new DAF Apprentice Academy.

Zero emission priority

The network is also key to another of its key priorities: the move to zero emission vehicles.

“In 2023 we announced that every single dealer group in the UK has signed up for the DAF Electric Truck Centre programme, and last year a lot of work has been done in ordering the required infrastructure, completing the training and obviously getting the demo trucks on board as well,” says Kiss.

DAF offers fully-electric vehicles within its XB Electric, XD Electric and XF Electric ranges, with models being deployed into UK fleets this year.

The manufacturer has supplied three customers in The Netherlands with electric trucks to undergo field trials, and is doing the same with 10 customers in the UK.

“The feedback from the field trials in the Netherlands has so far been fantastic, from a range perspective and also from viability and experience perspective as well,” says Louis Jones, EV & Connected Services Director at DAF Trucks.

“Our 10 UK customers will get their vehicles very early on in 2024 on an initial 12-month basis and, as well as that, we also have the ZEHID (Zero Emission HGV and Infrastructure Demonstration – and that is going to be a real catalyst for zero emission vehicles in the UK.”

The programme, which was launched with £200m delivered in partnership with Innovate UK, comprises four consortia which will procure around 350 zero emission vehicles – both battery electric and hydrogen powered – which will all hit the road by 2026.

DAF Trucks is involved in three of them – Electric Freightway, led by Gridserve, eFreight 2030, and HyHaul. It is also involved in a fourth consortium – Dynamon – which is not part of ZEHID.

Paccar Power Solutions

DAF’s parent company Paccar last year launched Paccar Power Solutions, which focuses on providing charging infrastructure.

“Under Paccar Power Solutions, we’ll also be looking at additional elements of the charging infrastructure such as battery energy storage systems, supporting customers where maybe it’s quite tricky, costly or not speedy to use the grid at their site,” says Jones.

DAF has used Paccar Power Solutions to install infrastructure across its dealer network. Sales locations across the dealer network will install 100kW chargers to support customers.

“For instance, if they’re waiting for their own depot to be electrified, could they use one of our workshops to support their infrastructure as part of their operation?,” says Jones.

“Very soon we will be launching a trial of a platform that will provide sight of the chargers across our network to allow customers to access our chargers, to book a charging spot, and remove the complexity and noise that sits around paying for public charging.”