Trucks remain indespensable when it comes to satisfying the needs of daily transport of goods and materials, but in a similar way as personal transport, they also have to deal with increasing demands for creating less pollution. Which means that also for trucks, local emission-free mobility is the answer.
Major advances in battery technology already allow heavier duty trucks to be (at least locally) driven by electric motors alone. Proof of that is Mercedes-Benz Urban eTruck, which is based on a heavy duty three axle short-radius distribution truck, normally equipped with a diesel engine.
Daimler engineers replaced its complete diesel powertrain with electric motors directly adjacent to the wheel hubs. They have maximum power of 2 x 125 kW and peak torque of 2 x 500 Nm. However, with the help of gearing, torque at the wheels can even reach 11,000 Nm!
Electric motors get their power from a set of lithium-ion batteries with a total capacity of 212 kWh and an estimated range of 200 km. With adding and removing the cells, the battery pack can be customized according to desired range. 100 kW charging with CCS Type 2 connector takes between two to three hours.
Daimler also wrote about the progress they achieved with light duty truck Fuso Canter E-Cell that successfully completed about six months of the first fleet trial for this kind of trucks in Germany; in the future it will be available as Fuso eCanter. It features a battery pack with capacity of 48 kWh and an electric motor that produces 110 kW of power and 650 Nm of peak torque. Via the same standardized connector as seen with the Urban eTruck, its batteries can be charged to 80-percent capacity in just one hour.