trucks are on the road train: highway 5, South of Frankfurt, two specially equipped Truck for well over a year, an electric-Highway. So far, both with pantographs on overhead wires-run vehicles were seen only rarely, in the course of the beginning of July, the beginning of the summer holidays to come, however, three more for E-Trucks. Then, it is said in the attempt to monitor traffic authority Hessen Mobil was operating the “E-Highway”, so to speak, in full. Because of the Corona pandemic, we have trained drivers online, and after an accident in January in a travel direction of the temporarily non-usable range on the A5 to be re-repaired.
Ralf Euler
editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung, responsible for the Rhine-Main-part of the Frankfurt General Sunday newspaper.
F. A. Z.
On the busy, five-kilometre-long section between the connection of Langen/Mörfelden and city dock the truck with a pantograph on a catenary and supplies electricity. The vehicles are equipped with a hybrid drive and can be removed at Tempo 80 at any time from the contact wire, change the lane or leave the motorway. In normal traffic it is driven by an electric motor. The Sensors in the roof of a trolleybus, recognize the customer are automatically out. The engine is then supplied with a current, at the same time the battery charges. Therefore, the Truck can travel to the Undocking electrically more. The battery is empty, switches to the hybrid motor to Diesel.
Dense network of overhead lines
In the case of the four-year-long experiment called “Electrified, innovative, heavy traffic on highways” (Elisa) is to be examined, whether the goods transport with electric trucks a significant contribution to the relief of the climate and the environment can afford. In the year 2023, the results should be available. If the upper management will enforce the Truck, however, depends primarily on whether the purchase of such vehicles operating economically is a win. This in turn will only be the case if, in Germany, at some point, a dense network of overhead lines is available. Highways should be equipped on 4000 kilometres of track for electric trucks with overhead wires, says the Federation of German industries (BDI). This would correspond to almost a third of the approximately 13,000 kilometres of fast roads in Germany. The estimated costs of one Million euros per kilometre, you could have come to the necessary investment of four billion euros.
Actually, after the test launch in may last year, the special vices of the Volkswagen subsidiary Scania from Sweden should be supplied successively. However, due to the Corona pandemic, there was a delay. Therefore, only two of the catenary Hybrid trucks are on the track. The Federal Ministry for the environment has provided € 14.6 million for planning and construction of the infrastructure in the state of Hesse available.
