Daimler presented its new environmentally-friendly vehicle – Mercedes-Benz Urban eTruck with an admissible total weight of up to 26 tonnes designed for transporting goods in urban and suburban areas.
Urban eTruck is powered by all-electric drive that produces zero emissions and is almost silent in operation. The Truck comes with a battery pack that consists of 3 lithium-ion battery modules with a total capacity of 212 kWh. Batteries guarantee a range of up to 200 km. If users need to change the range, the modular battery pack can be customized by adding or removing batteries.
Fully discharged batteries can be charged to 100% in 2-3 hours. In addition, batteries are charged during operation thanks to regenerative braking – the electric motors act as generators to recharge the batteries when eTruck is braked. The batteries are stored in crash-proof place inside the frame since motors are adjacent to wheel hubs. The Urban eTruck is connected to the charging station using the Europe-wide standardized Combined Charging System Type 2 connector.
According to Daimler, the use of fully electric drive systems in trucks was unimaginable until recently because of the high costs of batteries and their low range. Now that technology has become much more mature, the cost of batteries is expected to drop from 500 Euro/kWh to 200 Euro/kWh by 2025, and the battery performance is expected to increase from 80 Wh/kg to 200 Wh/kg.
"Electric drive systems previously only saw extremely limited use in trucks. Nowadays costs, performance and charging times develop further so rapidly that now there is a trend reversal in the distribution sector: the time is ripe for the electric truck. In light distribution trucks, our Fuso Canter E-Cell has already been undergoing intensive customer trials since 2014. And with the Mercedes-Benz Urban eTruck, we are now electrifying the heavy distribution segment up to 26 tonnes. We intend to establish electric driving as systematically as autonomous and connected driving," said Dr Wolfgang Bernhard, responsible for Daimler Trucks & Buses at the Board of Management.
Fuso Canter E-Cell
Mercedes-Benz Urban eTruck will celebrate its public premiere at the 2016 IAA International Motor Show for Commercial Vehicles. Urban eTruck will be celebrating its premiere in the form of chassis with cab.
The company plans standard production of this vehicle at the beginning of the next decade. By that time, Daimler will systematically test and further develop a technical concept.
Stefan Buchner, Head of Mercedes-Benz Trucks said, "With the Mercedes-Benz Urban eTruck, we are underlining our intention to systematically developing the electric drive in trucks to series production maturity. This means that we will begin to integrate customers, so as to gain valuable joint experience with respect to the operating ranges and the charging infrastructure in daily transport operations. Because we think the entry of this technology into the series production is already conceivable at the beginning of the next decade."
Source: Daimler
by Natalie Myhalnytska
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