Scania has partnered up with Danish concrete leader Unicon to develop an all-electric concrete mixer truck. More specifically, the development work has gone into powering the concrete drum from the truck’s high-voltage battery to ensure continuous operation, even in challenging scenarios.

As electric trucks become more and more mainstream, manufacturers are faced with the challenge of also serving niche customers with electrified solutions to decarbonize their fleets. We’ve seen electric construction trucks, mining trucks, and garbage trucks, and now Scania has unveiled its solution for concrete mixers. It was developed together with Unicon and Liebherr, which makes the concrete mixers that are put on the trucks.

The devil is in the details

One of the main challenges of electrifying a concrete mixer truck is the high energy demand. The mixer itself needs to keep working, whether the truck is driving, at a standstill, or crossing rough terrain.

Key to the success of this electric system, where everything runs off the high-voltage battery, is the electric power take-off (ePTO). Instead of taking energy from a conventional truck’s driveline, the ePTO taps directly into the battery to power the concrete drum. Development of this system took three years, according to Scania.

Unicon has already ordered 10 more

With that said, Scania’s electric concrete truck is not the most efficient e-truck in the world. It manages a range of 200 km from a 400 kWh battery. But it isn’t meant for long-haul transport anyway: it mainly needs to bring the concrete from the depot to the job site reliably.

And this isn’t just a proof-of-concept, either. With this development work done, Scania is ready to offer more customers a ready-made solution. Unicon has already agreed to buy an additional 10 electric vehicles, intending to achieve emission-free concrete transport by 2035.