Mercedes breaks the 1 MW charging barrier with the eActros 600 truck

Mercedes-Benz Trucks has successfully charged a truck at a whopping 1,000 kW. The company is calling this the "Megawatt Charging System" or MCS, and proudly boasts that it's now entering the implementation phase, following the successful test.

For the internal test, a prototype Mercedes eActros 600 truck was used, which has a 600 kWh battery (hence the name). The company notes that while MCS, a standard with which Mercedes-Benz Trucks was "thoroughly involved" in the development process, can refer to any charging capacity north of 700 kW, it wanted to go to the full 1,000 kW - since that's what "megawatt" actually means.

Rainer Müller-Finkeldei, Head of Mercedes-Benz Trucks Product Engineering, said:

Our developers have put the newly defined MCS Standard into the e-truck in the shortest of times with full charging capacity – an outstanding feat of engineering. Customers placing high demands on range and vehicle availability will benefit in particular from megawatt charging at 1,000 kilowatts in future.

Peter Ziegler, Head of E-Charging Components, Mercedes-Benz Trucks, says the company is now "working at full speed to take the MCS technology" into production eActros 600 units. Going forward, this work involves further trialing of the comms interface between the EV and the charging station, and "ongoing development of prototype components to series maturity".

The launch of the series production of the eActros 600 is planned for the end of this year. It will initially arrive with support for CCS charging at up to 400 kW, while MCS tech will be retrofittable to it at a later point. Customers can in fact specify that they want the retrofit once it becomes available during their order process.

The eActros 600 is expected to achieve a range of 311 miles. When you factor in the legally prescribed driver breaks, Mercedes says this means the truck will be able to travel "significantly more than 620 miles per day (since it would be charging while the driver takes the mandatory rest). This will be possible even without megawatt charging. For context, note that "around 60%" of long-distance journeys of Mercedes Trucks customers in Europe are shorter than 311 miles.