A brawny Kenworth W900 truck graced the cover of the November 2004 issue of ASSEMBLY, honoring the inaugural recipient of the magazine’s Assembly Plant of the Year award. Back then, the world was a much different place. No one thought that same plant in Renton, WA, would be building battery-powered heavy-duty trucks two decades later.

In 2004, internal combustion engines ruled the world. Artificial intelligence was only found in science fiction movies. Facebook had just been invented and no one ever heard of Instagram, TikTok or Zoom.