The Traton Group is intensifying its transition to commercial vehicles powered by alternative drives and planning to invest $2.8 billion in electric mobility research and development by 2026 to support this goal. Previously, the budget had been $1.7 billion by 2025. At the same time, the manufacturer is scaling back its investments in conventional drives.
In 2021, Traton Group brands Scania, MAN Truck & Bus, Navistar and Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus s reported a combined unit sales of 1,076 fully electric vehicles including 97 trucks, 153 buses and 826 vans.
Christian Levin, CEO, Traton Group, says: “We have consistently aligned our planning for the next five years to focus on battery electric drives. These drives are clearly the greenest, fastest, and most affordable solution for our customers, even for long-haul transportation, although hydrogen may prove to be a useful addition in certain applications. Since trucks are charged primarily during peaks in supply and troughs in demand, the power load on the grid is moderate. This is why we should focus on creating the infrastructure we so urgently need. Establishing the fast-charging network for passenger cars also offers a unique opportunity for synergies.”
The energy cost advantage of battery-electric trucks is the key to a rapid switch to e-trucks, because fuel and energy costs account for the largest share of the total cost of ownership (TCO) for intensively used commercial vehicles. They exceed the purchase costs many times over. The better the vehicles are utilized, the more intensively, longer and more regularly they are used, the greater the energy cost advantage of e-trucks becomes. Overall, a typical heavy-duty e-truck in Europe is likely to be ahead of a conventional diesel truck in terms of total costs as early as 2025. However, this requires an area-wide fast-charging infrastructure, in Europe designed for a driver’s 45-minute break after four and a half hours of driving.
“For Traton Group, the high cost-effectiveness of e-trucks on long-distance routes is the most important lever for an emission-free future. We expect that by 2030, as much as 50% of our new sales in long-haul transport could be battery electric, provided the charging infrastructure is in place. This is not likely to fail due to the resilience of the power grids. Our trucks mainly load at midday and at night, when demand and prices are particularly low,” says Dr. Andreas Kammel, who is responsible for the strategy on alternative drives and autonomous driving at Traton Group.
The Traton Group intends to work with Daimler Truck and the Volvo Group to establish a public charging network for battery electric heavy-duty trucks and coaches as part of a joint venture. All partners already signed a binding agreement at the end of 2021, which is now subject to antitrust approvals. The plan is to install at least 1,700 high-performance green energy charging points across Europe within five years of the establishment of the joint venture.
Hydrogen not likely to dominate road transport
A recent research paper published in the Nature Electronics journal titled ‘Hydrogen technology is unlikely to play a major role in sustainable road transport’ by Patrick Plötz at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, come to the conclusion that the battery-electric drive is superior to the fuel cell in the vast majority of regions and of commercial vehicle applications, explicitly including long-distance heavy-duty transport. The author argues that technical and economic developments in battery and fast-charging technologies could soon make fuel cell electric vehicles, which run on hydrogen, superfluous in road transport.
Catharina Modahl-Nilsson, chief technical officer, Traton Group, concurs: “This analysis once again confirms Traton Group’s strategy of focusing on battery-electric drives for our commercial vehicles. In truck traffic, especially on long-distance routes, pure e-trucks will in most cases be the cheaper and more environmentally friendly solution.”
This is because hydrogen trucks have a decisive disadvantage: only about a quarter of the output energy flows into the drive, and three quarters is lost through conversion losses. With the e-truck, the ratio is reversed. In addition, the expected amount of green hydrogen is limited, even with large-scale imports, and should thus be available to energy-rich industries, as the Fraunhofer study also summarizes. The demand from European industry alone, for example steel mills, massively exceeds the total green hydrogen production capacity currently planned for the EU for 2030.
“Battery-electric long-distance trucks are coming, the technology is there, and the networks will go along with it,” says Catharina. “What’s needed now is political support to achieve massive CO2 savings quickly with this technology. That’s why the development of a high-performance charging network for e-trucks must be pushed forward promptly, and with government support.”
Christian adds: “Our priority is investing in fully battery electric vehicles, and our aim is for 50% of our long-haul trucks to be zero-emission by 2030, provided the corresponding regulatory mechanisms and infrastructure are in place.”