Germany is one of the European countries that is making efforts to become more eco-friendly – more recently, it has started to test an eHighway system that will host a lane for electric trucks.
The eHighway sitretches for 3.1 miles between Frankfurt and Darmstadt and hosts electric-diesel hybrid trucks that merge into the usual traffic while receiving power from the cables overhead.
Before this, the system was developed and tested on an abandoned military airfield near Berlin.
The test trucks are fitted with pantographs, sensor-fittied electric pickups that can reach above for the cables overhead, as well as batteries. If the cables are severed accidentally, they will shut down automatically. In addition to that, they are also equipped with an anti-icing system that should keep them operable even during the cold winter months.
If the tests are successful, Germany will fit 1,000 Km (6,213 miles) of its highway network with the overhead cables. These cables will work as energy-reloading stations on-the-go, so to speak, which will give them more range, as the hybrids also carry a backup diesel motor.
It’s still going to be a while until Germany will see all or most of its trucks run on this system across the country – 10% of the road’s daily vehicles that cross its highways are trucks and out of those, only 5 of them run the electrified stretch of road.
But this move might encourage truck companies to give electric a go, considering these vehicles could go on for longer drives on a single charge.
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