EVwire brief: H.Essers has added 20 new electric trucks to its fleet, with the Belgian logistics company bringing its total number of e-trucks to 31.
The new trucks are split evenly between MAN and Mercedes-Benz Trucks, with ten units from each brand. All 20 are already in operation and will mainly run from H.Essers' Belgian sites, while the company expands its charging infrastructure and energy supply across several locations.
H.Essers announced the new e-trucks on LinkedIn, highlighting its ambition to build a more sustainable logistics chain:
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The Mercedes-Benz e-trucks offer between 525 and 575 km (326 to 357 miles) of range. The MAN units are rated at 400 to 450 km (249 to 280 miles). Trucks from both brands can be recharged in about 90 minutes under optimal conditions.
The order builds on a pilot H.Essers ran over the past year, which put six electric trucks from three different manufacturers into daily operations. This means that the company is now taking what it learned from a small test fleet and applying it to a much larger rollout.
Christopher Van den Daele, COO Transport at H.Essers, said electric trucks are becoming a viable option for more of the company's operations:
"Making logistics more sustainable requires a combination of solutions. Electric trucks play an important role in this and are becoming a viable option for an increasing number of applications. We believe electrification is an essential part of the logistics of the future. This expansion enables us to deploy electric trucks on a larger scale in a real operational environment."
The investment is part of H.Essers' wider sustainability strategy, which aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions from its own transport fleet by 42% by 2030. The company also wants 15% of its fleet to be electric by the end of the decade.
On the charging side, installed capacity at H.Essers' sites in Genk and Bergen op Zoom is being expanded to 2.7 MW. The company has also introduced Synchro Grid, a company-wide energy ecosystem that aligns energy production, consumption and storage, with the goal of gradually turning its sites into flexible energy hubs.
Drivers seem to be warming up to the switch. Inez Selis, a truck driver at H.Essers, shared her first impressions of driving electric:
"I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I drove an electric truck for the first time, but I was immediately positively surprised. The truck is exceptionally quiet and very comfortable to drive. You notice the difference especially on longer journeys. Once you've driven electric, you don't really want to go back to a diesel truck."
H.Essers' electric fleet currently operates mainly from Belgium and the Netherlands. The company is now exploring how to scale the technology across other countries and activities in its European network.
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Context:
H.Essers' expansion comes as more European logistics companies move from small electric truck pilots to full-scale fleets. GEODIS, for one, recently ordered 110 Volvo and Renault electric heavy-duty trucks for France, with the deal set to grow its European Road Network's electric fleet to 190 vehicles. JUNA, the electric-truck-as-a-service venture between Scania and sennder, is scaling just as quickly, having passed 100 electric trucks with plans to reach about 150 by the end of the year.
Mercedes-Benz Trucks, one of the two truckmakers in H.Essers' new order, has been landing big fleet deals of its own. Amazon took delivery of its first 27 eActros 600 trucks in Germany in September, with the vehicles forming part of a 200+ unit order that is the largest electric truck deal in Amazon's history. This means that H.Essers' new Mercedes-Benz e-trucks are joining a rapidly growing number of electric rigs from the German truckmaker on European roads.
Source: H.Essers on LinkedIn, H.Essers press release
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