EGESDORF (Germany): Mercedes-Benz has launched the production version of a global sustainable heavy duty truck which it says could make smoke-belching diesels redundant within a few years.
After Volvo, Mercedes is the next major European maker to move into what is still a small market, despite a consensus by experts on the need to cut diesel lorry emissions worldwide.
The eActros 600 is the German maker's answer to the Tesla Semi, an electric truck built by the US manufacturer since 2022. The first were delivered to PepsiCo at the end of last year.
That truck is powered by three motors, and is claimed by Tesla to have around three times the power of a typical diesel semi truck and a range of 800 km.
In a world where businesses are striving to lessen the environmental impact of their operations, electric trucks could help to achieve a more sustainable supply chain.
Electric mobility for long-haul trucking has always been hard to achieve owing to the limitations of the battery technology in meeting everyday operational requirements.
Mercedes-Benz's latest 44-ton electric truck boasts a payload capacity of 22 tons, despite being fitted with a bigger 600 kWh battery pack. This enables the truck to offer a driving range of about 500 km with a single charge without need for stopovers.
Sales of electric trucks sales remain low across most major markets, apart from in China, and numbers are limited to a few hundred in most countries. Even in the European Union only around 2,000 electric trucks were sold in 2022.
Mercedes-Benz says that the eActros 600 can clock more than 1,000 kilometres per day with intermediate charging.
The truck's battery packs can also last up to 1.2 million kilometres for a span of 10 years of operation. After this period of use, the battery state of health should still be over 80%.
According to a report from consulting firm PwC, the use of electric trucks will soon become widespread and will "largely replace conventional trucks in large parts of the world within the next 15 years."
