MAN connects carbon-cutting outbound transport service with Vega
MAN Truck and Bus is working with its transport provider Vega International on a carbon-cutting intermodal service in which electric trucks are being used to deliver MAN trucks on last-mile routes in Germany.
Vega is also providing rail for the main leg of the journey from MAN’s assembly plant in Krakow, Poland to the Rheine rail terminal near Osnabruck. Overall, the companies are saving emissions over a 1,500km delivery route.
The intermodal service is supported by Vega’s r2L road-to-rail l loading concept for trucks and semi-trailers, which enables trucks of up to 4.2 metres high to be loaded onto trains.
In a recently completed test phase, two MAN eTGX trucks were carrying trucks out from the rail terminal on a 300km radius to customers. The intermodal service is reported to save 2,700 tonnes of CO2 per year. Following the success of the tests, Vega plans to gradually expand the fully electric transport service and will put another ten eTGX trucks into operation in 2025. It plans to expand its electric truck fleet by a further 20-30 eTGX trucks in 2026.
“With the two eTGX trucks, we are gaining valuable experience in demanding real-world operations, which involve different routes and unloading locations every day. The battery range and operational suitability of the vehicles have proven to be excellent. We are using these findings to electrify further transport routes together with our partners,” says Franz Blum, CEO of VEGA.
MAN said the etrucks will be used not only for MAN's outbound logistics, but also for the pre-transport of new trailers from Vega customers Krone and Schmitz to Vega's own rail terminal in the city of Rheine. Additional carbon-free logistics projects are being developed within the Traton Group.
Rail savings
MAN said that the rail route to north-west Germany is part of Vega’s LionExpress service, which was set up in June 2023 and which provides a direct rail service to Germany from Brzesko in Poland (around 70km from the MAN assembly plant). So far Vega has transported more than 11,000 trucks by train, saving 6,000 tonnes of CO₂. Another direct rail service runs to Lamberg in Austria, operated by one MAN’s other transport partners, Gartner.
As part of its Vega’s r2L loading solution Vega is using a combination of electric and hydrogen trucks for last mile deliveries off the rail line. Vega is also investing over €30m in its own charging and solar park network at ten existing branches across Europe so it can be largely independent of public charging infrastructure. The logistics provider said it will invest a further €80-€100m to convert its existing fleet from fossil fuels to battery electric and hydrogen vehicles.
“Vega has been a strong and innovative partner for our outbound logistics for many years,” says Michael Kobriger, executive board member for production and logistics at MAN Truck & Bus. “Together, we are working consistently on solutions to further reduce the carbon footprint of our products. The combination of electric trucks with other zero-emission means of transport shows how climate-friendly supply chains can be intelligently implemented.”
MAN is pursuing its own Electrifying Outbound initiative as part of sustainability strategy and by 2030, it aims to reduce CO₂ emissions in the vehicle delivery process by 30%. In addition to electrifying the last mile and expanding the rail network, MAN said it plans to integrate other areas such as spare parts logistics.
“Our general aim is to deploy more and more etrucks in inbound as well as in outbound logistics,” said a spokesperson for MAN.
Earlier this year MAN outlined its aims to decarbonise logistics by increasing the use of eTrucks to transport its own goods and vehicles and battery electric vehicles (BEV) have been launched on around 40 routes. That includes test runs on inbound logistics using a fully electric eTGX truck, which was making two round trips a day on the Bamberg–Munich and Bamberg–Nuremberg routes (working with DB Schenker). MAN’s Munich plant makes the eTGX truck.
The charging infrastructure at the MAN plant in Munich has been expanded accordingly so that fully electric lorries in plant logistics can charge up quickly and directly near the unloading point.
