Dieselban? Keep your load cool!

The electrification of LCVs goes slowly and the electrification of refrigerated LCVs even more so, but it might take off now Adddax created a small refrigerated e-LCV. At the same time, Mercedes-Benz is piloting bigger refrigerated e-trucks. Perfect to solve the last mile in cities with diesel bans. 

More and more cities are banning diesel cars, or at least imposing environmental traffic restrictions. People can shift to other transport modes or to EVs; but the delivery of goods, particularly of refrigerated products is tougher. All the more so as most of these refrigerated vans and trucks are equipped with diesel engines. 

Dedicated e-LCVs

An interesting answer might be provided by the Belgian company Addax. Arisen out of the leasing cooperation between SOCARTRUST and Westlease, Addax is now an independent company, specifically dedicated to the development, production, lease and sales of electric LCVs. ‘We noticed the demand for e-LCVs, but the right product was not on the market yet,’ explains Liesbeth Braem, Marketing Coordinator of Addax.

Addax offers a variety of e-LCVs for various means, adapted to the specific needs of the customers, which are mainly cities and municipalities, theme parks, courier companies, and industrial companies. Operating for two years now, they have about 100 e-LCVs on the roads in various European countries, such as Belgium, Netherlands, France, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and in the near future, Germany.  

Refrigerated e-LCVs

What makes Addax special are the models MT10 and MT15, which can be equipped with a cooling unit, creating a refrigerated e-LCV for about 5 cubic meters of refrigerated products. Their secret? A separate battery for the cooling unit. As a result, the cooling unit can keep its load refrigerated for about 8 hours, after which the battery has to be recharged for about 6 hours, creating a perfect drive-during-the-day vs charge-during-the-night rhythm. Moreover, the battery can of course be loaded during the trip as well. The vehicle itself takes 4 to 5 hours to charge after which it can drive about 80km (model MT10), or 110km (model MT15).

Being small, agile, and creating zero emission and noise, these refrigerated e-LCVs might provide a suitable solution for small last-mile deliveries in traffic restricted and diesel banned city centres, where cargo-bikes or e-scooters are insufficient.

Scaling Up

For those who consider the MT10 or MT15 are too small, Mercedes-Benz is piloting bigger refrigerated e-trucks for a load up to 10 tonnes. The company Meyer-Logistik based in Friedrichsdorf in Hessen (Germany) is now test-driving the e-truck with a refrigeration unit to deliver refrigerated products to various supermarkets in the centre of Hamburg. 

Fully charged, the specially equipped eActros can drive up to 200km, which largely exceeds the need of the company, since a delivery tour would be about 100km. The pilot project is part of a bigger pilot project of Mercedes-Benz; in total 20 different equipped e-trucks will be handed over to various industrial clients, in order to test their suitability for their daily field of work. In particular, the cooling unit on the eActros used by Meyer-Logistic is the W.KO COOL model supplied by Schmitz Cargobull; and operates purely electrically.

Indeed, the gap for refrigerated e-LCVs might start shrinking. 

Image: Addax developed and constructed a dedicated refrigerated e-LCV, small and agile to fulfill the last mile.