The freight forwarding and logistics company, Duvenbeck, has taken another step towards switching its fleet to low-emission vehicles after a successful practical electric terminal tractor unit test.
The test took place at the firm’s business site in Rastatt in July this year. It was used to move uncoupled (semi-)trailers at the factory site of a vehicle manufacturer.
“The terminal tractor unit made by the Dutch manufacturer, Terberg, has completed its first operations in everyday service without causing any problems,” said Volker Mürb, Duvenbeck Branch Manager in Rastatt.
“The performance of the electric motor is in no way inferior to that of a diesel engine. It was easily possible to complete a day‘s shift without having to recharge the battery.”
Duvenbeck manages the trailer yard for a vehicle manufacturer. This involves a large-scale parking area where the truck trailers and swap bodies, which are full of components that have been supplied, are made available so that they can be driven to the relevant unloading points at the factory.
Duvenbeck uses so-called handling vehicles for this purpose and operates ten of them at Rastatt. Duvenbeck completes several hundred handling movements there every day.
Duvenbeck and the customer will now examine whether the test should be turned into a long-term phase lasting one year. The company has used tractor units powered by a diesel engine to move the trailers up to now.
READ: Kalmar supplies 18 terminal tractors to TT-Line in Australia
The capacity of the battery of the Terberg YT203-EV electric variant, which has been tested, is 150 kilowatt hours (kWh) and the unit is roughly two-and-a-half times more expensive than the diesel version.
It is also necessary to have the appropriate charging infrastructure. “Overall, any switch to electrically powered terminal tractor units would entail significant additional investments,” Mürb added.
