Daimler to go CO2-neutral by 2039

Martin Daum, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG, responsible for Trucks buses, said in his keynote address at the recent International Supply Chain Conference in Berlin that the company aims to offer only CO2-neutral vehicles in the three markets of Europe, Japan and North America by 2039.

Already by 2022, Daimler Trucks & Buses’ plans to include series-produced vehicles with battery-electric drive in its vehicle portfolio in its main sales regions Europe, USA and Japan.

Daum added that by the end of the next decade, Daimler Trucks & Buses will extend its range of vehicles with hydrogen-powered series production vehicles.

Just last week Daimler Trucks & Buses celebrated the world premiere of the Fuso brand fuel-cell prototype Vision F-Cell at the Tokyo Motor Show, thus further strengthening its activity in the hydrogen field.

With the Vision F-Cell Daimler Trucks & Buses says it is further strengthening its activity in the hydrogen field. The Fuso brand is using this prototype to test the possibilities of fuel-cell technology for various commercial vehicles.

The 7.5-tonne truck has a drive with a maximum output of 135kW. The range is up to 300 kilometres. The Vision F-Cell electric powertrain architecture is basically comparable to that of a battery-powered truck – apart from significantly reduced battery power and additional hydrogen tanks.

In addition, all European Daimler Trucks & Buses plants will be CO2-neutral by the year 2022. All other plants will follow.

“Having CO2-neutral transport on the road by 2050 is our ultimate goal,” said Daum. “This can only be achieved if competitive conditions for CO2-neutral transport are created for our customers in terms of costs and infrastructure.

“As it takes about ten years to completely renew a fleet until 2050, our ambition is to offer ‘tank-to-wheel’ CO2-neutral new vehicles… by the year 2039. Truly CO2-neutral transport only works with battery-electric or hydrogen-based drive.

“We were the first manufacturer to seriously commit to electromobility in heavy trucks and, today, are pioneers and in all segments with electric vehicles in customer use.

“Locally CO2-neutral trucks and buses won’t sell themselves, because even in 2040 – despite all efforts by manufacturers – the acquisition and total cost of ownership of trucks and buses with electric drives will be still higher than for diesel vehicles. We therefore need government incentives to make locally CO2-neutral trucks and buses competitive,” continued Daum.

Daum said that Daimler Trucks has been gaining experience with electric trucks since 2010 and since 2017 has had its first small series-produced all-electric truck on the market and in customers’ hands: the Fuso eCanter.

More than 140 eCanters are already in customer service in cities worldwide, including New York City, Tokyo, Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Lisbon.

The Mercedes-Benz eActros heavy-duty truck, with a range of up to 200km, is in intensive use by customers in Germany and Switzerland as part of the eActros “innovation fleet”. The first hand-off to a customer was in 2018.

In the United States, the medium-duty Freightliner eM2 and the heavy-duty Freightliner eCascadia are also undergoing intensive field tests with customers.

The all-electric Mercedes-Benz eCitaro, which has already been series-produced at the Mannheim facility since 2018, offers cities and public transport providers the opportunity to switch their fleets to locally emission-free driving.

Today the eCitaro is already operating in cities such as Berlin, Hamburg, Oslo/Norway and Ystad/Sweden. eCitaro vehicles were also delivered to Luxembourg and Switzerland.

The eCitaro is being continuously advanced for use in regular service. As of 2021, the eCitaro will come to the market with the next-generation battery and in the second half of 2020 with solid-state batteries (lithium-polymer batteries). As of 2022 the battery bus will come with a range extender (hydrogen-based fuel cell provides the high-voltage battery with power).

Daimler points out that it has been working on drive technologies based on hydrogen for more than 30 years. To date, the company’s fuel cell vehicles have traveled many millions of kilometres, demonstrating the marketability of this drive concept.

Still, there are challenges in the commercial vehicle sector, such as service life and payload availability. Battery-electric and hydrogen-drive technologies offer different benefits depending on the purpose and therefore complement each other.

However, the decisive criterion for truck and bus customers is the total cost of ownership, and Daum says that Diamler is working hard on this.