With their Fuso eCanter electric truck already gearing up to make deliveries in the US and Japan, Daimler must have been eyeing an opportunity to upstage Tesla, a pioneering name in the realm of electric vehicles, in the electric trucks game. When it got that opportunity of a global platform in form of the Tokyo Motor Show, the German auto giant used it to play to the gallery by showcasing the E-Fuso Vision One, a heavy-duty electric truck it claims is capable of traveling a distance of 217 miles on a single charge with 11 tons of load.
The E-Fuso Vision One is part of the collaborative larger strategy of Daimler’s bus division and the Mitsubishi Fuso Truck to bring about a paradigm shift in its production of large vehicles by moving to electric engines. This is being done with an eye on the looming ban on internal combustion engines in all big cities and developed countries in the foreseeable future.
The top variant of the recently unveiled E-Fuso is likely to be equipped with a 300kWh battery pack for achieving that range of distance. Daimler hasn’t revealed much about the fast-charging capabilities on its next-gen E-Fuso, except for a press release stating that the infrastructure for supporting such vehicles could be made available in ‘mature markets’ such as Europe and Japan within the next few years.
That claim sounds entirely plausible as governments in such ‘mature markets’ will definitely be working toward developing infrastructure for electric vehicles before a ban on vehicles powered by conventional fuels kicks in. This infrastructure is likely to cater to commercial vehicles complying with those EV standards as well.
Daimler may have preempted Tesla in unveiling its first heavy-duty e-truck, but the latter is not one to be left behind. For now, its announcement has been put off until November, owing to some production problems with its Model 3 and CEO Elon Musk’s attention being diverted to helping Puerto Rico get its electrical grid off the ground following the devastation unleashed by Hurricane Maria. More market players are toying with the possibilities of what they can do with bigger electric vehicles in the 200-300 mile range.
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