I went to Daimler’s future technology presentation earlier this week. This contained plenty of detail about the company’s EV, hybrid and hydrogen strategies, but – more practically – it also offered the chance to have a go in various of the group’s greener vehicles.
One of which caught my eye: I’m a sucker for a truck. Especially one that has the novelty of wearing Mitsubishi badging at what was basically a Mercedes event; Mitsubishi Fuso was absorbed by Daimler about a decade ago.
As its name suggests, the Fuso Canter E-Cell is an electric-powered commercial, although just a prototype, and potentially a perfect answer to the question that gets asked whenever cutting car emissions in urban areas is suggested: “what about the lorries?”
The Canter is what’s normally known as a seven-and-a-half tonner, by happy coincidence the maximum size of truck you can drive on a car licence, although the E-Cell has a maximum permitted weight of six tons to help maximise its battery range.
Power comes from 500kg of cells mounted under the rear box – trucks aren’t short of space for such things – with the total 48.8kW/h capacity claimed to be good for around 60 miles of urban trundling on a charge. It’s powered by a 110kW electric motor and doesn’t have any gears.
This being the big difference, and the one that made the E-Cell the nicest truck I’ve ever driven. My previous cack-handed attempts to pilot commercial vehicles have taught me that it’s necessary to change gears at least twice as often as in a typical car, often with the result of lots of nasty sounding crunching noises.
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nice idea...
like it, but seriously trucks need 400 miles range and lot of battery power if running chilled boxes on back.Hopefully will come in the future, as to driving on car licence {older people can}, even with licence entitlement now you need a cpc {35hours training every 5 years for cpc ,renew licence every 5 years after 45yrs old, inc medical and you need to be able to use a tachograph{follow strict driving rules} buy tacho card ,every 5 years too and you need an operators licence {which is a realm of nonsence} with a dedicated{employed at your cost} transport manager to run your fleet of 1 truck. NO wonder hgv truck sales dropped by 30% in 2017 ,and foreign traffic has increased by 20% as its lot cheaper and easier to run trucks across the water.
Kenworth also have an
Jesus Mike, you cant drive a
Why is Mercedes writing "E motion without emission" on the side ? thats a lie, its deffo lower emission but it aint no zero emission.
Can't drive a truck