DAIMLER EYES FULL E-TRUCK PRODUCTION BY 2021
DAIMLER Trucks North America has handed over keys for the first in a series of 30 battery-electric trucks – a mixture of eCascadias and eM2s – and it’s already focusing on plans to begin full production in 2021.
But there are plenty of lessons to learn about the underlying technologies and business cases along the way.
The first of the trucks are being referred to as an “innovation fleet” that will be used to test equipment in real-world operating environments with the help of Penske and NFI National Freight, primarily on the US West Coast. And a new Freightliner Electric Vehicle Council was established in October to gain insights from 30 customers with strong use cases for electric trucks, exploring everything from deployment strategies to current legislation, charging infrastructure, and service support.
Central to any of Daimler’s future electric vehicle rollouts will be a new eConsulting service, which will explore the electric trucks, assess routes, analyze economic feasibility, provide financing, deploy charging infrastructure, support maintenance and operations, manage the fleet, and deal with the vehicle’s end of life. Details on how customers would pay for that support has not yet been established.
“It’s not only the truck itself,” said Andreas Jurtzka, senior e-mobility lead for Daimler Trucks North America. “It’s very definitely close with the customer, not yet any consensus on what the charging plugs will look like, or even where the connections will be made. Freightliner has put the plug on the driver’s side of the eM2 for Penske. In the test vehicles, Freightliner has adopted the European Combined Charging System (CCS2) standard, and it continues to work with the CharIn initiative to develop common plugs and communications.
“Do we lease the batteries? Don’t we lease the batteries?,” Jurtzka asked. “We haven’t made our mind up yet.”
Then there’s the question of what to do with the batteries once they don’t offer enough range for trucking.
“What happens after the truck is five years old?,” he asked. And there could eventually be opportunities to rethink the design of the trucks themselves, maybe lowering the hoods because there is less hardware to store underneath.
Granted, these are not the only electric vehicles Daimler has on the road. There are now about 100 Fuso e-Canters in the US, drawing on six MercedesBenz 360 V, 82.8-kWh lithium ion batteries. That vehicle’s maximum payload is set about 9,380 pounds.
The manufacturer believes it has an advantage over emerging electric truck producers as well.
“Everybody can build one or two trucks. Everybody can build 10,” Jurtzka said. The question is who can produce 1,000 units that are reliable for several years.