VW Wants to Fill the Roads with Electric Trucks and Buses
Germany’s Volkswagen Group is spending billions to develop zero-emission commercial vehicles and heavy trucks to bookend its coming electric-car push.
Its Truck & Bus unit, which includes MAN and Scania, confirmed it is spending €1.4 billion on a step-change that includes electric powertrains, cloud-based software and self-driving technology.
The move to electric heavy transport is gaining momentum from Daimler, Cummins, Tesla, Nikola, Nissan and a host of smaller outfits.
While a lot of the software systems will be converted from those already developed from the Volkswagen Group’s car-making divisions, the Truck & Bus division is aiming at urban commercial transport to clean up inner-city air quality.
Besides battery-electric trucks, buses and vans, it will also add bio-diesel, natural-gas and hybrid powertrains, plus fleets of all-electric buses for European cities from as soon as next year.
“We believe in a wide range of alternative powertrains and fuels, depending on local availability, social and local demand and customer requirements,” Volkswagen Truck & Bus head Andreas Renschler said at a press conference yesterday.
“Therefore it is crucial that policy makers adopt a technology-neutral approach (to regulations).”
Renschler insisted battery-electric power would penetrate to about five per cent of the world’s local-delivery fleets by 2025 (that figure is expected to be between 15 and 25 per cent for cars).
Critics suggest that’s far too conservative a figure. It was, after all, Volkswagen Truck & Bus’s reticence to deliver a battery-electric local-delivery vehicle that prompted Germany’s Deutsche Post to create its own BEV van.
“With city buses, we are just hitting the break-even point compared to conventional solutions,” Renschler admitted.
“Electric distribution trucks are expected to turn positive in 2020-25,” though he admitted battery-powered long-haul heavy vehicles would be the last transport field to become profitable for owners, insisting today’s battery packs “are too heavy and room-stealing”.
Renschler came to Volkswagen from Daimler, the world’s largest commercial-vehicle maker, which has also announced its intentions to swing its focus towards zero-emission trucks and buses.
Renschler’s division is already pushing its autonomous-driving capability, but it’s avoiding complications by containing its self-driving vehicles to closed conditions, like factory shuttle buses and airport snow ploughs, though it plans to have more complex systems in production in 2019.
“The autonomous Scania mining truck standing outside of this building is ready to be shipped to the first customer overseas after this event,” Renschler said.
“This truck is not a vision. It’s real stuff, here and now.”
Besides Scania and MAN, Volkswagen Truck & Bus also owns Navistar in the US, a quarter of the Chinese truck maker, Sinotruk Hong Kong and has a cooperative agreement with Russia’s GAZ.
Views:0
- JAC and VW Cooperation Process 2020-07-30
- VW to Increase Its Stake in JAC Joint Venture from 50% to 75% 2020-07-23
- VW Offers $2.9bn for Control of US Truckmaker Navistar 2020-02-04
- VW and Ford Launch Global Alliance to Build Medium-duty Trucks and Vans 2019-01-24
- JAC and VW's Seat Join Forces to Develop EV Platform in China 2018-11-30
- IAA 2018: VW Unveils Hydrogen-powered Crafter HyMotion Van Concept 2018-09-27
- VW's Traton Announces JV for Electrified Trucks with Hino 2018-09-25
- VW Truck & Bus Enters Cooperation with Hino Motors 2018-04-18
- VW Partners with JAC to Form Light Commercial Vehicles JV 2017-11-30
- VW Teams Up with Navistar to Introduce Medium-Duty Electric Truck in 2019 2017-09-30
Submit Your Requirements, We Are Always At Your Service.
- XCMG Mining Trucks Make a Stunning Debut at the China-Eurasia Expo
- Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan Held Talks with Representatives from SHACMAN
- BYD Ranks Among Top 10 in 2024 Kantar BrandZ Global Automotive Brands
- Mexico Poised to Be World's Third-largest Producer of Automotive Parts
- Skywell Partners Berjaya to Promote NEVs in Malaysia
- Brand Value of FAW Jiefang Reached 131.845 Billion Yuan in 2024
- SINOTRUK’s "Cab CKD Factory” Commenced Production in Nigeria
- XCMG Celebrates the Tenth Anniversary Its production in Brazil
- XCMG Showcased Its Mining Machinery at the Exponor Exhibition in Chile
- SANY Made the List to Global Top 50 Engineering Machinery
- Exports of Pickups Reached 22,892 Units in May
- Exports Surge by 157%! DFAC Exports 9,628 Vehicles from January to May
- China's Heavy Truck Exports Rising 58% YOY to 276,000 Units in 2023
- China Exported 507,000 Trucks from Jan.-Sept., Up 21% YoY
- China Exported 65,000 Trucks in July, Up 17% YoY
- Half Year Review of Commercial Vehicle Sales
- China Exported 63,000 Trucks in May, Up 33% YoY
- Top 10 Best-selling Battery-swapping Heavy Trucks in China in April
- China Exported 158,000 Trucks in Q1, Up 41% YoY
- China’s Truck Exports Grew by 43.8% YoY to 46600 Units in Feb., 2023