DAF Eindhoven inaugurates new electric truck assembly (update)

Already in January, DAF Trucks finished its Eindhoven compound’s new assembly line for electric trucks. Now, the Dutch Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate, has officially cut the ribbon for the inauguration of the 5 000 square meter DAF Electric Truck Assembly.

The DAF XD and XF Electric presented at IAA 2022 will start rolling off the line in June 2023. Eventually, DAF hopes to produce several thousand electric trucks annually at the facility.

DAF started building the Electric Truck Assembly back in the summer of 2021. It doesn’t manufacture the new-gen electric trucks from scratch but rather assembles the electric drivetrain into so-called gliders, chassis-cab combinations without drivelines.

New-gen electric trucks

These gliders are moved from the main assembly lines of the Eindhoven factory onto the two assembly lines of the Electric Truck Assembly: one for the battery packs themselves and one for mounting the high-voltage components onto the chassis.

The new-gen electric trucks that will be assembled at the new Electric Truck Assembly are the XD and XD Electric, which were announced at the IAA Transportation in Hanover in September 2022. In addition, both 4×2 and 6×2 tractors and rigids will be built.

Up to 500+ km

The DAF XD is the successor of the CF distribution truck and is available in both tractor and rigid versions, although the latter is more commonly seen on the road. The DAF XF New Gen was launched in 2021 and is often used as a tractor for heavy-duty or long-haul transport.

Both electric trucks are powered by Paccar (DAF’s parent company) e-motors with 170 to 350 kW of power (230 to 480 hp). The battery packs are modular and have a capacity of 105 kWh each, with the option of speccing 2 to 5 ‘strings’ with a combined capacity of 210 to 525 kWh.

The largest battery pack reaches a range of over 500 km, according to DAF, while fast charging allows the packs to be recharged from 0 to 80% in 45 minutes. Slow overnight charging up to 22 kW AC is possible but only feasible for distribution trucks with the smallest capacity.