On-sale date revealed for Fuso eCanter

A new era for light-duty trucks in this country is fast approaching, with Daimler Truck and Bus Australia Pacific announcing its all-electric Fuso eCanter will launch in Australia in February.

The battery-powered, zero-tailpipe-emissions Fuso eCanter was first introduced in 2017 and was shown locally for the first time at the 2019 Brisbane Truck Show.

More recently it has undergone testing in Australia in a number of fleets, including that of our largest fleet operator of electric vehicles, Australia Post.

Late last year we got to try out the eCanter in Australian conditions with a day of testing in and around Melbourne and came away impressed with its performance and quiet operation.

The Fuso eCanter is currently operating in Europe, the United States and Japan, with Australia now set to join the list in seven months' time.

According to Daimler Truck and Bus Australia Pacific President and CEO, Daniel Whitehead, there's significant interest among Australian operators for an advanced, all-electric transport solution.

"The best light truck fleets in Australia have told us that safety and emissions reduction are absolutely critical for them," Mr Whitehead says.

"We introduced Advanced Emergency Braking to the light truck class in Australia with Canter last year and now we will be first with a fully integrated manufacturer-developed electric truck."

Mr Whitehead says operators are drawn to the eCanter because it's a fully integrated Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) product.

"It's quite simple to take a truck, swap out an engine and replace it with a third-party motor and batteries if you want an electric truck in a hurry, but the Australian market is more mature than that," he says.

The near-silent Fuso eCanter will also launch next year with a raft of the latest safety systems, including autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian detection, lane departure warning, electronic stability control, hill start assist, a reversing camera and driver and passenger airbags. Daimler says the package will be provided as standard and at no extra cost to the customer.

All-electric trucks are shaping up as the next big battleground for truck manufacturers, as governments around the world seek to lower carbon emissions and customers look to their supply chains to reduce their own carbon footprints.

While the Fuso eCanter looks set to become Australia's first volume-production all-electric light-duty truck, Hino is pursuing local sales with the latest iteration of its 300 Series Hybrid, while Isuzu is continuing to invest in is all-electric truck program in Japan

Both firms' light-duty trucks have previously been fitted with battery-electric drive systems from Australian commercial EV specialist, SEA Electric, however Isuzu told trucksales.com.au that it was "not taking that program to the next level".