Mercedes-Benz Trucks and DACHSER sign Letter of Intent: Order for 50 eActros LongHaul

The logistics service provider DACHSER is planning to add 50 units of Mercedes-Benz eActros LongHaul, presented at this year’s IAA Transportation, to its European fleet. The global company from Kempten has signed a Letter of Intent with Mercedes-Benz Trucks to this end. DACHSER intends to use the eActros LongHaul configured as a 6x2 swap body vehicle with a storage height of 1,120 mm. DACHSER is thus significantly expanding its electric vehicle fleet. This e-truck, with a range of around 500 km with one charge, is expected to be ready for series production by 2024.

Stina Fagerman, Head of Marketing, Sales and Services at Mercedes-Benz Trucks: "DACHSER is a very valuable customer for us in sustainable transport. DACHSER was already a committed testing partner during the development of the eActros 300/400 for heavy-duty distribution transport. We are all the more pleased that the logistics company is now also planning to rely on the eActros LongHaul in the next step, reinforcing our e-strategy."

Alexander Tonn, Chief Operating Officer (COO) Road Logistics at DACHSER, says: "This Letter of Intent underlines our commitment to the development and testing of environmentally friendly commercial vehicle drives. The long range of the eActros LongHaul will enable us to transport goods between our European locations without emissions, even in heavy payload traffic and in long-haul transport. This is an important component of DACHSER’s long-term climate protection strategy."

DACHSER has been using battery electric vehicles such as the FUSO eCanter and the eActros since 2018 as part of its sustainable urban delivery concept “DACHSER Emission-Free Delivery”. In eleven European cities, battery electric vans and trucks deliver all consignments locally CO2-neutral as standard in a defined inner-city area. On the last mile, DACHSER also uses electrically supported cargo bikes to distribute the consignments. The pilot project in Stuttgart was the winner of the “Sustainable Urban Logistics” competition of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment and the Federal Environment Agency in 2018.

"We have had very good experiences in city logistics with the performance of BEV vehicles. It was therefore logical to take the next step – long-distance driving – together with Mercedes-Benz Trucks," says Stefan Hohm, Chief Development Officer (CDO) at DACHSER.

The Mercedes-Benz eActros LongHaul

Development engineers at Mercedes-Benz Trucks are designing the eActros LongHaul so that the vehicle and its components meet the same durability requirements as a comparable conventional heavy long-distance Actros. That means 1.2 million kilometers on the road over a period of ten years. The batteries used in the eActros LongHaul employ lithium-iron phosphate cell technology (LFP). These are characterized, above all, by a long service life and more usable energy. The batteries of the production eActros LongHaul can be charged from 20 to 80 percent in well under 30 minutes at a charging station with an output of about one megawatt. Three battery packs provide an installed total capacity of over 600 kWh and two electric motors, as part of a new e-axle, generate a continuous output of 400 kW and a peak output of over 600 kW.

In addition to the tractor unit, Mercedes-Benz Trucks will also produce rigid variants of the eActros LongHaul right at market launch. This will offer customers numerous other possible use cases in fully electric transport.