In the run-up to the IAA Transportation 2024, MAN Truck & Bus gave a preview of its trade fair appearance in September at the beginning of July. The focus of the test drives in front of the Austrian Alps was on decarbonising road freight transport. For the first time, around 200 journalists had the opportunity to test trucks with electric, hydrogen and state-of-the-art diesel drives in direct comparison.
The new MAN eTruck, which now offers over a million configuration variants with its modular battery concept, numerous wheelbases, cabs, PTOs and industry equipment, proved to be fit for the needs of all relevant industries, body solutions and transport tasks. Its preparation for the upcoming megawatt charging standard MCS with up to 1,000 kW enables recharging within the driver’s driving break. This enables a daily range of up to 800 kilometres, which is also sufficient for typical long-haul applications. This is one of the reasons why customers are already very interested: 2,000 order requests and orders have already been received, including a major order from France with 100 vehicles.
“Even though the transition to CO2-free freight transport is characterised by several drive technologies, our focus is clearly on electromobility as the main drive technology. The hydrogen combustion engine can be a useful addition for special applications, as can the fuel cell drive, which is currently still under development. In addition, the diesel drive will continue to play an important role throughout the entire transformation until it is completely replaced. That’s why we’ve made it significantly more efficient, economical and lower in CO2with our new D30 engine. It is based on the common engine platform of the TRATON GROUP and is the tangible result of intensive cooperation between our development departments. In future, we will be producing combustion engine and electric trucks on the same production line in order to be able to react flexibly to the shift in demand towards electric trucks. However, for the drive revolution to succeed, the expansion of the charging infrastructure must be an absolute priority for politicians, infrastructure operators and manufacturers,” says Alexander Vlaskamp, CEO of MAN Truck & Bus.
By 2030, every second MAN truck registered in Europe should be battery-electric. Recently, the charging infrastructure joint venture Milence, in which MAN is part of the TRATON GROUP alongside Daimler Truck and Volvo Trucks, opened one of the first large truck charging parks in the Port of Antwerp. A total of 1,700 charging points are to be created on the initiative of the manufacturers in the coming years. A total of 50,000 will be required by 2030 for the steadily increasing number of electric trucks. MAN is also working on the electrification of its own service network.
MAN is the first manufacturer to introduce trucks with hydrogen combustion engines
In parallel with the ramp-up of electromobility, MAN is working on hydrogen technology as a complementary zero-emission solution for special applications such as heavy-duty transport or for applications where charging infrastructure is difficult to implement. During the test drives in Austria, MAN showed the prototype of a hydrogen-combustion truck, which will be delivered as an MAN hTGX in small series of initially 200 vehicles from 2025 to customers in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Iceland and selected non-European countries for the first time. Just like its electric counterpart, it meets the strict criteria of a zero-emission vehicle.
Highly efficient conventional drive in transition
For the demand for conventional combustion-engine trucks that continues to exist in the technology transition to zero-emission drives, MAN is bringing a highly efficient engine for the MAN TGX and TGS series semitrailer tractors with the new Power Lion driveline. Based on the combined technology expertise of the TRATON GROUP, the engine developed specifically for MAN vehicles achieves a considerable further fuel reduction and thus a CO2reduction of up to 3.7 percent with the new MAN TipMatic 14 gearbox, a new brake generation and aerodynamic measures. In countries with a CO2 toll, it will also be able to offer further savings in kilometre costs by being classified into very favourable toll classes.
State-of-the-art safety and assistance systems
In addition to decarbonisation technologies, the test drives in the Alps focused on new assistance systems. While MAN has been producing pedestrian and cyclist detection, the third generation of the advanced emergency braking system (EBA) and the turning aid for the protection of the most vulnerable road users in series production for its truck series since the beginning of 2024, the new version of the MAN TGE van, which was only unveiled at the Transpotec trade fair in May, entered the test drives in Austria with a host of new safety and assistance functions. This includes the Cruise Assist Plus system with the Emergency Assistant function. The emergency assistance system continuously monitors the driver’s activity. If this is not the case, the system can bring the vehicle to a standstill and then secure it (activate hazard warning lights, initiate eCall, unlock doors).
SOURCE: MAN Truck & Bus
