Photo: klk.
Designwerk Technologies' eTrucks have broken the 1000 kWh barrier. The battery packs are correspondingly enormous. The electric vehicle pioneers are now cutting through the debate surrounding charging infrastructure with a "Mega Charger" housed in a container. The development is promising, and Galliker is the premium customer.
CEO Adrian Melliger reiterated his statement at the presentation of the "Mega Charger" that the engineers in Winterthur are installing the world's largest battery packs. However, these are still relatively expensive and consume enormous resources – although the recycling problem is to be solved by up to 90% recycling at Librec in Biberist from 2024 onwards, and the valuable material is to be returned to the production cycle.
A. Burgener, A. Melliger. Photo: klk.
The solution, however, does not lie in developing ever larger battery capacities – but rather in building an intelligent charging network that, in the coming years, should include 15 additional charging stations for heavy goods vehicles along national highways, alongside those operated by logistics companies themselves, as Andreas Burgener of Auto Suisse puts it. The right approach – similar to that used for industrial trucks in intralogistics – involves timely and sufficiently rapid intermediate charging. This gives long-haul trucks not only a few hundred kilometers of range, but also an additional boost within the 45-minute break already mandated for drivers, and – as demonstrated in a calculation presented to an engaged audience in Winterthur – up to 814 km on that particular day.
Mega Charger control panel
Within the EU, trucks account for roughly a quarter of road traffic emissions, representing 6 percent of all CO2emissions. These emissions are generated by the approximately 6.6 million trucks that transport around 77 percent of all land freight. If the climate targets are to be met by 2030, CO2 emissions from heavy goods vehicles mustbesignificantly reduced.
Across Switzerland, battery-electric transport vehicles are currently hardly in use in (not quite so long-distance) "long-haul" transport. Undoubtedly, this is a question of infrastructure. "But with heavy goods vehicles, we have to make sure that no one gets stranded," says Peter Galliker. The transport service provider of the same name has, according to its own figures, invested around 14.5 million Swiss francs in electromobility so far. Galliker, a guest at the ceremonial presentation of the first Mega Charger in Winterthur, produces 13.755 MWh of electricity using photovoltaics on its own roofs and plans to install twelve Superchargers, one "Mega Charger," and a substantial battery storage system at its Altiswil location alone, in order to supply up to 50 eTrucks. He sees potential for up to 150 trucks. Galliker admits, however, that he operates well over a thousand trucks and delivery vehicles in total. The climate goal of equipping half of the vehicle fleet with alternative drives by 2040, in order to be able to operate in a climate-neutral manner by 2050 (and as early as 2030 in city logistics), is ambitious.
“Second-life”batteries in a container
About a year ago, explains Vivien Dettwiler, the developers at Designwerk, supported by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) and industry and university partners, began specifying an 8.5-meter-long container. This container could be installed at various locations without major construction work and in different configurations to upgrade the currently inadequate charging infrastructure for long-distance electric vehicles. Furthermore, the container could be equipped with "second-life" batteries, which, with a capacity of 2 MWh, could serve as a buffer for charging truck batteries overnight or on weekends when the grid is weak, and could also support the local power grid by feeding electricity back into it. The developers at Designwerk have charging, discharging, and capacity utilization curves available that show that, for example, the Mega Charger, of which two can be installed in the container, can add another 440 km of range in just 35 minutes.
Mobile Power
The charging stations and containers aren't cheap, says Peter Galliker, referring to the price ranges, which vary depending on the capacity and range from 350,000 to 1.4 million Swiss francs. On the other hand, they don't want any "interim solutions" but rather to invest in the right system from the start. Nevertheless, there will be three drive types available temporarily: diesel, electric, and fuel cell.
Galliker itself plans to have charging stations at all its locations in the long term, "so that no truck driver has to worry about being stranded on the road." They don't want to wait for subsidies to make progress. After all, the performance-based heavy vehicle tax is waived for electric vehicles. Galliker also intends to ensure sufficient charging capacity in Stuttgart, Ghent (Belgium), and Liège in the future.
Designwork Technologies is now also selling smaller, mobile charging stations the size of a trolley, which can even be taken along on a truck if necessary – and due to the lower power output (but now available with 88 kWh) they naturally take a little longer to charge.
K. Koch
