It’s been four years since the Volkswagen Group acquired International Trucks. And a lot has happened since then.

The move added a long-desired North American heavy truck OEM to VW’s impressive global product portfolio.

But acquisitions take time and a lot of work. There are company cultures to blend and align. That’s a daunting task in any situation. 

But VW also chose to use the timing of the International acquisition to launch Traton – a brand-new, stand-alone global truck OEM. International, of course, immediately was set as one of the crown jewels of the massive new company, along with Scania, MAN and Volkswagen Truck and Bus.

Since then, International has spent the past four years aligning itself within the Traton Group global mission and rebuilding its brand identity in North America. 

Over the past year or so, there have been concrete signs those processes have been gaining momentum at an impressive rate. The OEM recently retired its “Navistar” name. And it resurrected its captive financial retail business.

International has introduced a host of new trucks. These include including a redesigned HV model, and a new, Class 8 eRH electric truck.

The OEM has also begun to integrate cutting-edge Traton technology into its North America product line with its fully integrated S13 heavy-duty drivetrain.

And there are a lot more products, services and technologies in the pipeline headed toward North America.

At ACT Expo 2025, HDT’s Executive Editor, Jack Roberts, sat down with Mathias Carlbuam, president and CEO at International, and Catharina Modahl Nilsson, executive board member, Traton Group Product, management, Traton, for a wide-ranging discussion on where International finds itself at the moment – and where this historic truck OEM is headed next.

HDT: I guess there’s no way around the fact that the Trump administration is attempting to roll back emissions regulations in the U.S. So I guess we’ll start there: How will that affect International’s electric truck and zero-emission powertrain development efforts?

Nilsson: Traton and International aren’t just going to push a button and stop development on these new products. We can’t just wait and see what happens then restart everything four years from now.

We see this as a softening of the market in North America. And it certainly brings uncertainty into our business models.

But we have big investments in these new technologies. And we have to consider customer needs around the entire globe. And in those places, the R&D work on these technologies is continuing at full speed.

However, being a global company means that we can leverage technology from our brands around the world. We can pick and choose what we need from our toolbox of products, so to speak. 

It does feel a bit surreal at times. But we remain focused on developing these new products and technologies for markets all around the world.

HDT: Do you think that, perhaps, these Trump emissions rollbacks could eventually be a good thing in North America? That these rollbacks could give renewed life to less ambitious options such as natural gas, or renewable diesel for long-haul applications. Perhaps usher in a more phased-in, and manageable timeline for new powertrain technologies in North America?

Carlbaum: I think there were problematic gaps in the approach that was being taken. The idea that the U.S. would remake its entire electric vehicle charging infrastructure in just three or four years, for example. That just wasn’t going to happen.

And I think those policy gaps helped to create some resistance to the regulations in the marketplace.

Regulations have some merit. But ultimately, technology and infrastructure must come together to create favorable Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for our customers.

Limited subsidies help. But sooner or later, new technologies must live on their own merits. 

Now, how long does that take? Five years? 10 years? 15 years? Of course we don’t the answer to that question yet. 

But I do think that we will now see a more gradual approach to ZEV technology adoption. And International must always be ready with the best solutions for our customers when they are ready to make that transition.

HDT: In your keynote address (at ACT Expo on April 28) you noted that there is a lot more going on in trucking right now than emissions regulations.

Carlbaum: Exactly. We’ve been so obsessed and focused on the regulatory environment for the past few years, it’s been easy to miss all the other things that are happening now.

Autonomous technology is coming into play faster than we expected two years ago. We also see new digital capabilities coming online now. And those things will drive a lot of efficiency, productivity and value for our customers. It will give a productivity boost to under-utilized vehicles. It will allow for better route planning. And it will create a better work environment for drivers.

Nilsson: At Traton, what we are doing is building what we call the Traton Modular System. This is where our engineers create a mechanical vehicle with an electronic architecture. This will allow us to develop vehicles and products that have “plug-and-play” capabilities.

For example, we see that autonomous, hub-to-hub operations will come to the U.S. before Europe. Meanwhile, we now see that E-Mobility solutions will become more common in Europe than here in North America.

But, with our global R&D organization, established in April of this year, we have developed an electric vehicle architecture that allows us to add autonomous solutions or E-Mobility powertrains to our vehicles around the globe. We can pick and choose the technologies our customers need from around the globe. Which is why we do not worry about the pace of technologies in one country or another. We are well-positioned to meet our customer needs regardless of where they are.

HDT:You mentioned electronic vehicle architecture. I know that for passenger car OEMs, dealing with millions of lines of code from multiple component suppliers has created engineering headaches for designers and reliability issues for customers. How are Traton and International dealing with this problem? Is this an issue you are concerned about?

Nilsson: At Traton, we believe we are in a better position than the pass-car OEMs because we have actually developed our own codes for engine and powertrain management. And we’ve had these codes for years.

And we have a huge software engineering division that is continually working on these codes and our electrical architecture. Because we understand that we need to own all of software. We have component suppliers too, of course. 

But when you want to be fast and do software updates – particularly when our over-the-air updates become available – we need to be able to do those procedures quickly. Which is why we need to be able to control the software architecture and the codes, as well. 

These are software-defined vehicles that we are developing now. And the great thing about software-defined vehicles is that no longer will a vehicle’s functionality be set at the time it is produced.

With software-defined vehicles, if you need to add more functionality, you can easily do so over the entire life of the vehicle. 

HDT: International is a storied U.S. brand. What has it been like bringing International into the Traton Group? Are there new Traton technologies you are chomping at the bit to bring into North America?

Carlbaum: It’s been a fascinating journey. Something like this has not happened in a very long time.

We take the legacy of International here in North America very seriously. It is the descendant of the International Harvester Company – one of the oldest companies in the world. That is a very real strength for us.

At the same time, we have brands with leading technology, like Scania, Volkswagen Truck and Bus and MAN, within the Traton Group. And we are able to bring these two worlds together in new and exciting ways. The evidence that this is already happening is our S13 integrated powertrain, which has been in our customers’ hands for over a year-and-a-half now.

And more big things are coming: Both in terms of hardware and on the software side. As Catharina said, we have a common software architecture to build upon. That gives us a modular system that we can build our products with. And we will have plenty of news coming out on this front in the next two or three years.