MAN: Heavy E-Truck to arrive in 2024 - Fuel cell for niche markets

"The future starts for eMobility here and now!" With these words, MAN CEO Alexander Vlaskamp welcomed his guests in Nuremberg. Invited were representatives from politics, science, and business. At the event, which was held under the motto "The Future starts now - We pave the road to Zero Emission," the Munich-based commercial vehicle manufacturer presented for the first time a near-production prototype of a heavy-duty e-truck. Production of the heavy trucks is expected to start in Munich as early as the beginning of 2024. Afterwards, the delivery of an initial 200 units is planned soon – a year earlier than originally scheduled. Until then, there is still some way to go. MAN is still testing the truck exclusively on its own test track, and the first road approval is yet to come.

"We are at the beginning of a transformation and we are relying on e-mobility," said Vlaskamp.

The focus at MAN and the Traton Group is clearly on battery-electric drives. With the prototype shown today, the company is accelerating its shift towards emission-free driven commercial vehicles. Even before the first e-trucks are delivered, the manufacturer wants to prepare its customers early on for the vehicle deployment. For this purpose, extensive eMobility solutions are being developed. The battery-electric drives form the basis for the heavy e-trucks that the manufacturer wants to bring to the market from 2024. However, it does not want to lose sight of the hydrogen drive, which will come later.

"Only when sufficient green hydrogen and the corresponding infrastructure are available well after 2030, do we expect the use of H2 trucks in selected application areas. Therefore, we are researching the topic of hydrogen, and the support from the state of Bavaria enables us to build further expertise in this field," says Vlaskamp.

MAN has therefore also initiated an important hydrogen future project. This will be accompanied by further capacity building in the field of hydrogen technology. In 2024, MAN trucks with hydrogen fuel cells are to demonstrate their suitability with five customers in Bavaria. The state of Bavaria is funding the research project "Bayernflotte" as part of its own hydrogen strategy, thereby promoting capacity building. The funding amount is 8.5 million euros. To this end, Bavarian Prime Minister Dr. Markus Söder, together with Minister of Economic Affairs Hubert Aiwanger, handed over the funding commitment today.

Prime Minister Markus Söder commented on the handover and the start of the project:

"A good day and an important step!"

His Minister of Economic Affairs Hubert Aiwanger added:

"Freight forwarders can drive into the future with this truck."

MAN emphasized that battery-electric and hydrogen-powered fuel cell drives go hand in hand technologically and build on each other. This was highlighted with the first presentation of the battery-electric driven prototype based on the new MAN Truck Generation. The electric motor, which draws its energy from batteries, forms the starting point. BEVs (Battery Electric Vehicles) already offer the basic technology today that combines MAN's customers' requirements for cost-optimized, practical solutions with the pursuit of sustainability and climate neutrality, described Vlaskamp. As a complement, trucks and coaches with H2 fuel cells can be used in the future since they rely on the BEV powertrain but replace a large part of the weight-intensive batteries with lighter hydrogen tanks and the fuel cell.