TRATON brands focus on electro mobility
- October 3, 2019
- Posted by: Simon Wait
- Category: Industry News
The TRATON brands MAN, Scania, and Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus have committed themselves to an electro mobility offensive aimed at creating a complementing solution to the combustion engine.
“Our goal is to become the leading provider of e-trucks and e-buses,” said Andreas Renschler, member of the board of management of Volkswagen AG and CEO of TRATON SE at the Group’s Innovation Day in Södertälje, Sweden. “By 2025, we plan to have spent a total of more than €1bn in electro mobility,” Renschler said.
However, increased market penetration by electro mobility is being highly dependent on charging infrastructure and the costs of purchasing and operating a battery-powered vehicle — the decisive factor for forwarding companies. “But our customers’ interest in e-mobility is clearly growing,” said Renschler. “In the mid-term, we expect that the total cost of ownership (TCO) of battery-powered commercial trucks used in distribution services and city buses will be comparable with vehicles powered by fossil fuels.” The reason: battery cells will become less expensive, and their service life will grow.
One big strength of the TRATON GROUP is its ability to spread development costs across the three brands. “In the Group, we are developing a common modular electric powertrain toolkit, that will be used in 2020 in the first serial produced all-electric city buses made by Scania and MAN,” said Christian Levin, the chief operating officer and head of R&D at TRATON SE. “It can be individually modified depending on the brand and area of use. As a result, a maximum number of individual solutions can be produced with a minimum number of components and costs.” For the first time, TRATON has also introduced a cross- brand development budget for electro mobility and brought together teams from all over the Group.
They are working on the next generation of e-drive systems, a software for battery management, and the compatible frame structure. TRATON’s brands already hold more than 1,000 electro mobility patents — and, thus, some 25% more than in 2018.
