Most of you have probably heard the news that Tesla is making a heavy-duty electric semi truck. Well, now Mercedes is hopping on the bandwagon. Today, the German automaker announced its plans to produce a Mercedes-Benz heavy-duty electric truck in 2021. Daimler, the group that owns Mercedes, has said that they will commit $3.2 billion to this project, with ten test vehicles already running.
Test Trucks
The test vehicles are set to spend time with customers of the production trucks. Some of the customers include supermarket chain Edeka and a logistics group, Hermes. The ten test trucks are currently running 11 battery packs with two electric motors. Mercedes would like to see how the electric truck compares to its diesel counterparts. Currently, there are two variants on the road, one with 18 tons GVWR and one with 25 tons GVWR.
Range
Mercedes claim that the truck will be able to go 125 miles on a charge, which is significantly less than the upcoming Tesla semi. However, these trucks were designed with inner-city goods transport and delivery services in mind, according to Mercedes.
Unlike Tesla, Mercedes have not mentioned 0-60 times or charging period. Expect more information on that soon.
There appears to be a blossoming electric semi race going on between Tesla, Volkswagen’s MAN division, and now Mercedes. To keep up on the latest news from this race, including more info on the Mercedes-Benz heavy-duty semi, be sure to stay tuned to TFLtruck and TFLnow!
If you’d like to hear everything we know about the Tesla Semi, please be sure to watch the video below, where Nathan and Andre talk about the upcoming electric big rig:
