AUTONEWS

Rizon: the newest brand of the Daimler Group

Rizon is Daimler's new electric truck brand, which also owns Mercedes-Benz, for example. Initially, the focus is on the North American market. Especially California, where battery charging infrastructure is more developed. The sales potential is high. After all, half of the commercial vehicles sold in the state in 2023 will have to be electric.

However, unlike the other Daimler brands, which operate in the heavy-duty market, Rizon will offer smaller models. That is, for urban transport operations. After all, it is in this segment that electric cars make the most sense. Thus, these are vehicles with a Gross Gross Weight (PBT) of up to 8 tons and a range of around 250 km.

According to the company, the models reach the North American market from the fourth quarter of this year. And, obviously, they will receive technologies that are already present in electric trucks from other Daimler Group brands. By the way, we are talking about light and heavy. For example, there are Freightliner eCascadia and Mercedes-Benz eActros, as well as the Fuso eCanter.

Furthermore, Rizon's trucks inherit Mitsubishi's model solutions. In the US, the brand left the segment in 2020. However, it joined Daimler to develop the Fuso eCanter, unveiled in 2022. The goal is to make it possible to offer small electric trucks in the North American market.

For this, Rizon will launch three trucks, named e18L, e16L and e6M. The "M" and "L" refer to the battery sizes. That is, the "M" has two batteries with a total capacity of 83 kWh and autonomy of up to 180 km. In the case of the "L", there are three packages of 124 kWh that guarantee around 250 km of autonomy.

Market potential for Rizon... As a result, they serve a variety of applications, such as platform, container transport, dry box, refrigerated chest and hydraulic crane, among others. According to Rizon, the three trucks have various driver assistance technologies. Among them, there is an emergency brake with automatic activation, in addition to blind spot monitoring.

Rizon's goal is to attract customers who work in urban areas and on short journeys. In addition, they are operations with frequent stops throughout the day. Therefore, the sales system will be focused on retail. Therefore, it targets last-mile delivery operations as well as maintenance services.

According to Daimler, Rizon will not have its own dealerships. In this way, the service will be provided by the Velocity Vehicle Group, a company that offers commercial vehicles and services in the segment, based in California. The warranty will be 120,000 km for trucks and 200,000 km for batteries.

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