Swindon company to build public charging network for electric trucks in Europe

Swindon based MAN Truck & Bus and E.ON are jointly taking a decisive step forward in the expansion of the charging infrastructure for commercial vehicles in Germany and Europe.

As part of their new cooperation, the energy company and the commercial vehicle manufacturer will set up around 170 locations with around 400 stations for public charging of electric trucks across Europe.

E.ON and MAN are investing in the new charging stations, which will be built along the existing MAN service network and will also be able to charge commercial vehicles from other manufacturers. Around 125 sites are planned in Germany alone.

This will create the largest nationwide public charging network for heavy commercial vehicles in the country to date. Additional sites are being built in Austria, the UK, Denmark, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

Leonhard Birnbaum, CEO of E.ON said: “Europe has set itself the goal of reducing emissions from heavy commercial vehicles by 90 percent by 2040. Electric mobility is a central key to achieving this goal.

“We are investing heavily to give the infrastructure for electric heavy goods transport a decisive boost and to set the course for sustainable logistics and green supply chains. Nearly all major manufacturers are now focusing their development efforts on electric mobility.

"For the final breakthrough, we need a high-performance charging infrastructure that is designed on a European scale. We are delighted to be leading the way together with MAN.”

Alexander Vlaskamp, CEO of MAN Truck & Bus, said: “For the mobility transition to be successful, we need around 50,000 charging points for heavy commercial vehicles in Europe by 2030. As a manufacturer of electric trucks, we are of course making our contribution to this.

"I am delighted that E.ON is now a strong partner for the electrification of our service locations. We are thus laying another foundation stone for a public charging network. However, we still urgently need the support of policymakers to build this network on a large scale.”