Nagel tests Mercedes-Benz eActros electric truck in Hamburg

The fully-electric Mercedes-Benz eActros will now take to the roads for the food logistics specialist Nagel-Group in Hamburg.

The vehicle will round off the Mercedes-Benz Trucks eActros “Innovation Fleet” for testing the heavy-duty electric truck.

The first eActros has been taking part in customer testing since September 2018 and the eActros in use by Nagel-Group is the tenth vehicle in the fleet.

The aim is to be able to achieve clean and quiet short-radius distribution in urban areas from 2021 using heavy-duty series-production trucks.

The 18 tonne truck with a range of up to 200 km supplies refrigerated foodstuffs to different customers such as supermarkets in central Hamburg.

As a fully-electric and therefore locally emission-free truck, the eActros can also drive in zones subject to bans on diesel vehicles. After the daily round, the batteries are charged directly at the company’s depot overnight.

As part of practical testing of the fleet, the 18 or 25-tonne vehicles are put through their paces by 20 customers from various sectors as part of their regular daily operations.

The tests are made up of two phases, each with ten customers. Feedback from these practical tests flows directly into further development of the eActros right up until its readiness for series production.

The vehicle’s architecture has been designed around an electric drive system and features a high percentage of vehicle-specific components.

Two electric motors near the wheel hubs of the rear axle provide the drive, each delivering an output of 126 kW and 485 Nm maximum torque.

The transmission ratio used sees this brought up to 11,000 Nm on each wheel. The drive power is therefore on par with a conventional truck.

Lithium-ion batteries with 240 kWh capacity provide the eActros with the required energy. Depending on the available charging output, the batteries can be charged completely within as little as two hours (at 150 kW).

The development and testing of the heavy-duty electric truck in short-radius distribution operations is sponsored as part of the “Concept ELV” project to varying degrees by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMUB) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi).

The swap body on the eActros used by the Nagel-Group is the “W.KO COOL” model from Schmitz Cargobull for  transport of refrigerated goods.