Elecrtric Debut: MAN eTruck on Public Roads
The market launch of the new MAN eTruck 2024 is drawing closer: the large-series electric truck for CO2-free road haulage recently proved its full winter suitability in the Arctic Circle. Now it is going into its long-distance endurance run on public roads. For the premiere drive on the Olympic grounds in Munich, Bavarian Prime Minister Dr. Markus Söder took a seat in the heavy long-distance truck together with MAN CEO Alexander Vlaskamp. Alexander Vlaskamp once again emphasised the importance of expanding the public charging infrastructure for the successful conversion to battery-electric trucks. As early as 2030, 50 percent of all newly registered MAN trucks in Europe are to be battery-electric.
"We are now bringing our battery-electric truck onto the roads of Bavaria after the successful winter tests. As early as the middle of this decade, it will be more economical to drive e-trucks in this country than trucks with combustion engines. We are therefore launching our heavy-duty e-truck at exactly the right time, when demand from hauliers is expected to pick up," said Alexander Vlaskamp, Chairman of the Executive Board of MAN Truck & Bus, in concrete terms about the great market potential for battery-electric trucks, but at the same time emphasised with regard to the public e-infrastructure: "To achieve this, we urgently need at least 50,000 high-capacity, megawatt charging points in Europe – both at our customers' depots and along the main long-distance routes."
As part of the TRATON GROUP, MAN is already actively developing at least 1,700 high-performance charging points along motorways and at logistics hubs in Europe in a joint venture with other partners. The Munich-based company is also involved in the project "HoLa – high-performance charging in long-distance truck traffic": Along the A2 motorway between Berlin and the Ruhr region, fast charging points are to be set up where battery-electric long-distance trucks can be charged within the statutory break times of 45 minutes.
The new MAN eTruck is already technically prepared for the megawatt charging required for this, which is expected to be available from 2025. Long-distance daily ranges of between 600 and 800 kilometres, later even up to 1000 kilometres, will thus be possible with the electric lion. But the new MAN eTruck will also easily cover the majority of other typical transport tasks of today's trucks, such as low-noise and emission-free waste disposal in the city or the collection of milk from the organic farmer with the electric food tanker.
Production of the new MAN electric truck will start in 2024 at the main plant in Munich, where it will be manufactured on the same assembly line as conventional diesel trucks. This mixed production will make it possible to both flexibly meet the increasing demand for electric trucks in the coming years and still keep diesel trucks in the range for as long as necessary.
While 2500 electric trucks are planned to roll off the production line in Munich in 2025, 40,000 heavy-duty electric trucks with a lion in the radiator grille are to be newly registered in Europe in 2030 – around half of MAN's total annual production. MAN will manufacture the batteries for these vehicles itself at its plant in Nuremberg. Here, a production capacity of around 100 000 batteries is planned for 2030.
With the new electric truck, MAN Truck & Bus is thus consistently pushing ahead with its zero-emission strategy and the change towards zero-emission commercial vehicles – especially in heavy-duty long-haul transport.