Daimler has announced a new 12-month trial for fully-electric vehicles in urban roles
Fuso has launched a five-truck trial in Stuttgart, Germany to test the validity of fully-electric light-duty trucks in an everyday working environment.
The trial is the first in Germany – the second in Europe after the Daimler Trucks’ subsidiary carried out a trial in Portugal in 2015 – and will see four 6-tonne Fuso Canter E-Cell vehicles carry out road construction, landscaping, waste bin deliveries, and furniture transport activities.
These four will operate for the Municipality of Stuttgart and be fitted with either hydraulic tipper bodies or box bodies.
The fifth vehicle, under the care of logistics company Hermes, will be used for urban parcel deliveries.
Daimler Trucks & Buses head and member of the board of management of Daimler AG Dr Wolfgang Bernhard says the trial is about short-distance vehicles, not long-haul runs.
“Today’s internal combustion engine is highly efficient, eco-friendly and, above all, clean – and will long remain without alternative in long-distance transport,” Bernhard says.
“The situation is different when it comes to urban short-radius distribution, where a switch to electric trucks will be a technical and economic possibility within a few years’ time.
“In this way, we are making a small yet important contribution to urban mobility in Stuttgart.
“Daimler Trucks is at the forefront of this process – and is today, together with the Municipality of Stuttgart and Hermes, taking a key step towards market maturity.”
For the Municipality of Stuttgart, the electric truck trial is part of collective shift to electric vehicles.
“Sustainable mobility is a key issue for cities and electric mobility is an important element,” Stuttgart’s lord mayor Fritz Kuhn says.
“We’ve decided to make a change to our fleet: all new cars purchased by the Municipality will be electric.
“So we’re also very happy to test the four Canter E-Cell in day-to-day city traffic.”
Left to right: Daimler Trucks & Buses head and member of the board of management of Daimler AG Dr Wolfgang Bernhard, mayor of Stuttgart Fritz Kuhn, Daimler Trucks Asia head Marc Llistosella, and managing director of e-Mobil Baden-Württemberg Franz Loogen.
The third player in the trial, Hermes, says it another step in the company’s association with electric vehicles, having first trialled them in the 1990s under real-world conditions.
“We are similarly proud today to be using the new electric 6-tonne truck for our parcel deliveries,” Hermes Logistics Group managing director of operations Dirk Rahn says.
“The project is part of our long-term climate protection programme, under which we intend to systematically halve the CO2 emissions of our fleet by 2020.”
The five vehicles used in the trial provide 110kW (150hp) of power to the rear axle via a single-speed transmission and are capable of carrying just over 2-tonnes of cargo – once the chassis weight is accounted for.
The E-Cell has 650Nm of torque, is limited to 90km/h, and ships with a VSP warning system (vehicle sound for pedestrians) as it operates silently.
Like the trial in Portugal, the German test will last 12-months.