Mercedes-Benz eActros 600 e-truck | Hacker News Reader

Mercedes-Benz eActros 600 e-truck

mercedes-benz-trucks.com

35 pointsbelter59 comments

They are crazy ! Publishing detailed stuff like truck weight, batteries charging times.

I much prefer the Tesla way - a truck that was released 1 year ago (!), and still, nobody knows it's weight, range nor price.

Jokes aside, it looks very good ! Is there somewhere a real-life comparison between all those trucks ? (not like the one that was recently posted - which included detailed, by the minute data about battery / distance travelled but ... not weight the truck was carrying)

What are the specs? The linked web page is atrocious and can't find any kind of spec there.

https://www.mercedes-benz-trucks.com/en_GB/emobility/world/o...

Not good enough for long haul trucking (at least in the USA with its massive distances) but definitely good enough for delivery trucks and short/medium range regional stuff.

I think a pretty big percentage of US container trucking is railhead-destination rather than long distance source->destination. It feels like a lot of freight is transported by truck when you are on the freeway, but if you go to Europe or India (where rail is mainly passengers) you'll find the roads comparatively choked with trucks.

I'd love to see some numbers though -- this is all surmise.

That seems to be for the previous version, not the announced 600 kWh one.

edit: information on the new one can be found in the press release [0]:

- 600 kWh LFP battery

- 500 km range

- 400 kW CCS charging

- later: megawatt charging, 20 to 80 % in 30 minutes

[0]: https://media.daimlertruck.com/marsMediaSite/en/instance/ko/...

Same goes for the Tesla Roadster…

There was a news article about this truck completing a round trip journey across the Alps a few days ago: https://newmobility.news/2023/10/06/mercedes-eactros-600-man...

Stuttgart to Bolzano via the Brenner pass (1370m) and back. It charged just once in Bolzano. All this with a full load of 40 tonnes. I've driven that mountain pass. It's a major traffic route through the alps with some pretty steep segments.

So, based on that, it seems that it is doing quite nicely. If it can handle that, everything else is a piece of cake. About the same range as the smaller specced Tesla semi (the 300 mile one). All they'd need to do to increase the range is add more battery, I guess. I don't think that's particularly hard technically. But it does affect the cost/performance obviously.

In Europe, drivers need to stop and take breaks more frequently than in the US. So, 300 miles is plenty. And with fast charging infrastructure, the truck can be ready to go before the driver is legally allowed to get back behind the wheel.

> Stuttgart to Bolzano via the Brenner pass (1370m) and back. It charged just once in Bolzano.

What about a traffic jam where the trucks are stuck for hours on the pass? How long can they keep it up and what happens when the batteries run out?

I am aware that in the same situation you could also run out of fuel but it seems more unlikely to me. Also in the worst case you could haul fuel to the trucks.

I would expect it to not be a problem for EV trucks - my understanding is that fuel engines needs to be kept running, while EV just drains power when it's using it - when stuck in a traffic jam I suppose it uses 0 ?

Well batteries don't magically go dead but give you accurate information on how much range you have. In a traffic jam, EVs are super efficient. They don't idle; they just switch off. And they are also really good at generating loads of torque at low speeds. Probably a heavy electric truck is way more efficient than the diesel equivalent on a steep incline in a traffic jam.

Going downhill, electrical trucks actually regenerate energy. 40 tonnes is a lot of potential energy. So, if you do get stuck in the mountains with a nearly empty battery yelling at you long before it dies, turning around is a valid option.

Finally, this is a bit of road that is very challenging for ICE trucks. There's a slow lane, escape lanes, etc. Trucks breaking down, catching fire, etc. is a very regular event. They are well prepared for it. Thanks to decades of ICE trucks breaking down on this route.

And of course mobile chargers are a thing in emergencies or just when a lot of power is needed somewhere. Just put a container of batteries on a truck and you have a nice mobile charger. That's already quite popular for installing temporary charging infrastructure at events.

I don't see any advantage to having a diesel truck in such situations.

Wouldn't an EV use less energy in a traffic Jam? The engine does not constantly need to be running like a semi? Did I miss something?

Well, I was thinking about the typical stop-and-go but on a mountain - that would presumably take a lot of energy.

I'd still imagine it would again take more energy for an ICE in this situation?

The ICE aside from all the inefficiencies of the engine, needs to run constantly and then gain enough revs to begin moving, where as the electric truck suffers from none of this, you put your foot down and the electrons flow, are used almost precisely.

Then if there is a downhill on this road, the EV can likely use regenerative breaking to gain some energy back. Pretty awesome.

This or something similar would be my ideal RV. Cover the top with solar panels and you could park indefinitely. To top up for trips, many RV facilities have 220v power for charging and I could afford to wait. For boondocking, do it "Martian" style and have a stack of folded panels ready to deploy.

Isuzu also has an electric chassis truck: https://www.isuzucv.com/en/nseries/nseries_ev

A west coast company already takes Isuzu 4x4 trucks and turns them into pretty amazing campers: https://earthcruiser.com/

The have a whole new line for electric pickups, starting with the Hummer EV: https://earthcruiser.com/reserve-your-gmc-hummer-ev-earthcru...

Hummer is arguably a much better name for an EV than an internal combustion vehicle.

Super affordable! /s

It kinda sucks that any kind of decent camper van is so crushingly expensive for all but the upper middle class and rich.

How much do you think they ought to cost on top of the vehicle cost?

Starting at 600k for an off-road campervan. Who on earth buys these things?

Almost anyone who bought a home more than 10 years ago in a major metro area could afford it if they sold. I could comfortably spend 600K on some sort of boondoggle-mobile but I'd have to live in it full-time. A cellular or Starlink connection and a remote job could keep me going indefinitely.

Very rough calculation: assuming the RV is 5x2 meters that would be 10m^2 of solar panels. Solar energy that reaches the ground is about 1kW/m^2 at the peak, let's say that in a whole day we get the equivalent of 6h of peak energy (I'm probably overly generous here and not accounting for seasons and weather), and that the solar panels are 20% efficient. That makes 1x6x.2=1.2kWh per day.

The 4-battery version of the truck has a range of 400km with 448kWh of capacity, so that's 1.12kWh/km.

Putting everything together, running the truck on solar panels would afford a little more than 1km of range per sunny summer day of charge. To put it another way, a whole year of sun wouldn't be enough to charge the battery fully. So yeah, as tempting as it sounds, going full solar to power an RV that size is not viable. Even smaller ones aren't really either.

I think he means powering devices while parked

Why?

It's an electric truck. When it's parked, it's also plugged in to recharge.

You forgot to multiply it by the 10 m2. And btw maximum size of the truck is almost 10m long so you could probably squeeze in closer to 20m2. So, you would get 20km range from a day of charging. Not earth shattering but better than nothing

I love the diversified markets of Mercedes-Benz (Volvo too in the context of trucks) - sort of reminds me of Lamborghini tractors. Great to see their heavy EV offering

Lamborghini tractors came before Lamborghini cars.

And they only started making cars out of spite.

Countach humiliated the Italian blacksmith.

Neither of these are still cars-to-trucks companies, they just share a brand.

Mercedes-Benz (cars and light commercial vehicles) spun out its heavy commercial vehicle business in 2021.

Volvo Group (heavy commercial vehicles, marine, industrial) sold its car operation to Ford in 1999, which then sold it to Geely in 2010.

Before them Rolls-Royce (aerospace, gas turbines, marine, nuclear) spun out its car business in 1973.

Amusing little anecdote: The company used to be called Daimler, with Mercedes-Benz being a brand. As part of the split, the cars & vans unit renamed itself to Mercedes-Benz. Employees got little "Founding Member" stickers for their badges as a result - for a 100+ years old company :-)

Wonder how to they handle branding issues, though? For example infringement? They can’t possibly have all entities go after the offenders, they must coordinate that somehow? Not to mention logo or other branding changes.

If this blows your mind, have a look at how many different companies make and sell products under the Philips brand some time :-)

Usually one company will own the trademarks and license them to the other, so only one of the companies is responsible for managing the IP. E.g. the Rolls-Royce IP is owned by Rolls-Royce (the aerospace company) and licensed to the company that builds Rolls-Royce-branded cars (currently BMW). The contracts probably stipulate whether and how the spin-off has to handle a logo redesign or whatever else.

It may be a ways off replacing long haul routes, but for short routes in ubran environments the dividends from reduced emissions seem great.

I imagine in Europe there will be more use cases. In the US 150 mile range (with basically no traffic) fully loaded seems virtually useless. (Using their range calculator with 100% load, 50% load is a marginal range increase, and what about uphill?)

There's no way to link (the website is terrible and navigation doesn't update the URL) but i think this was pointing out that there's now a 500km+ (310mile) range truck. That's what the 600 refers to, 600kwh. The previous truck had 180kwh.

Click "Find out more" after scrolling to "EACTROS LONGHAUL"

I wonder how that works in territory that isn't flat, to what degree can energy that is put in during climbs be recovered during descent?

My EV gets a huge chunk back and it has amazing torque on climbs… not sure how this compares for as large a vehicle as a fully loaded truck though.

In Germany, trucks are going at 89 km/h (officiall 80 km/h) and the driver has to take a mandatory break, which is electronically tracked, every 4.5 hours. They have to take a 45 minute break, and the truck charges from 20 to 80 % in 30 minutes. So in theory, the 500 km range is sufficient, at least when it's moderately warm out.

In practice, there's already a shortage of simple parking space for trucks on break along motorways. It'll be quite difficult to quickly build out a network of chargers that supply > 1 MW per truck, for many trucks at a time, all over the place.

Surprisingly charges at 160kW. There are passenger cars that more than double that figure.

They say it can be charged from 20 to 80 % in 30 minutes. As it has a 600 kWh pack, it must charge at > 720 kW (given the megawatt charging system, which has not been finalized).

This is great! I hope germany turns around its dwindling car making industry, and evs are clearly the way to go. Now only if europe could solve its energy crisis.

> I hope germany turns around its dwindling car making industry

Yes, they only make what, 3.4 million cars every year there vs the 1.8 in the United States.

What does "locally emissions-free" mean? Exactly what I think it does?

Build everything in third world, ahem, developing countries, and so consumers can live guilt-free?

I think it means while using it, smoke doesn’t come out of it. Maybe while charging some emissions happen ?

Depends on how electricity is generated I'd assume.

I mean yes, but actually no.

In this context it means that, on top of selling you trucks, they're also interested in upselling you by selling you chargers, charge management software, consulting you on power requirements, liaising with power companies... things of that nature, therefore helping you be emission free.

Sounds like a tongue-in-cheek way of saying "EV generally has larger CO2 footprint but if you insist air in the city must be clean" to me as well.

Germany has a law about saying things are free. Like, you can't say pizza delivery is free because it isn't - it's wrapped up in the price of the pizza. In that way, electric vehicles aren't emissions free because they're charged by polluting power plants (most of the time).

How do they ensure that prices do not include delivery cost?

To me that's just typical German straightfowardness. You can drive it in a downtown where pollution and noise are strictly regulated. That's not to say that emissions don't happen elsewhere - to build the truck and to charge it.

I thought it meant for local delivery services, as opposed to long haul.

At some point the US abandoned cabovers and moved towards conventional cab trucks (with the long nose) which has the benefit of being more aerodynamic. I know European trucks are bound by more strict regulations and roads are often so small to warrant a cabover but why hasn’t long haul evolved? With EV’s especially it seems like a conventional cab would have a lot better range than a cabover.

I learned from a German hands-on video [0] on the Mercedes truck that there’s already a law that allows for up to 90 cm long noses for aerodynamic design [1]. But it seems no manufacturer has a model making use of that yet. I don’t think we will see a US style truck design though. If you want to deliver to any European city, the US it’s simply not feasible to go longer.

[0]: https://youtu.be/AdgcShJJaBc

[1]: https://trans.info/en/more-aerodynamic-truck-cabins-come-to-...

> At some point the US abandoned cabovers and moved towards conventional cab trucks (with the long nose) which has the benefit of being more aerodynamic

But at the expense of visibility. Vehicles in the US trend on having less and less visibility, which is (probably) having an impact on pedestrian deaths.

I was going to complain about the naming, but I see it’s a semi so I guess naming doesn’t matter. Though it would be nice if you could tell from the name that it was a semi.

It's not on the consumer facing site, right? I think everything there is industrial purpose. And the "Actros" line is all tractors.

That's like saying Mac Pro is an ambiguous name for a computer.

That’s fair, but now that you mention it I do also think that.

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