Around the world with the Mercedes-Benz eActros 600
A German Youtuber who focuses on electric trucking content will drive a Mercedes-Benz eActros around the world, becoming the first to circumnavigate the globe in a heavy duty electric truck.
Tobias Wagner, aka Elektrotrucker, makes youtube videos showing what it’s like to drive an electric heavy duty truck around Europe. He quit his previous job to start the channel in late 2024 to educate people about the current state of electric trucking, and show the capabilities and difficulties of doing so.
Almost two years later, the channel has turned mostly towards evangelism, as he has found there are a lot fewer difficulties and a lot more capabilities than people seem to think.
He’s done several challenge drives across Europe or to various difficult environments (cold in Finland, hot in Gibraltar,) to prove that electric trucks are capable and indeed, even better than diesel trucks.
But his next stunt will be bigger than all of those and take the better part of a year, in a custom-built adventure vehicle strapped onto the back of a heavy duty truck cab, crossing 38 countries and 40,000km (~25,000mi) to show that electric trucks are capable worldwide, not just on the well-developed roads of Europe.
Wagner will start off on his trip this autumn from Germany, and plans to take around 9 months to finish. He will cross Europe, West Africa, South and Central America, Southeast and Central Asia, then back through the rest of Europe.
For the trip, Wagner will drive a Mercedes eActros 600, which is being supplied by Mercedes with a few custom modifications like additional headlights, spare wheel carrier, single tires and an integrated mobile charging unit. These will help with navigating difficult roads and with finding places to charge when infrastructure might not be so developed.
After all, all you really need to charge is an electrical outlet… but with a 621kWh battery on a regular low-power outlet, that would take more than a week. On a proper megawatt charge station, it takes more like 30 minutes. Most of Wagner’s charges will probably be somewhere inbetween.
Wagner got to visit Mercedes’ factory to see his truck being assembled, and put up a video about the experience (video in German, but auto-translated english subtitles are available).
The trip is being marketed as “around the world in 80 charges,” as the total distance is about 80 times the ~500km (~310mi) range of the eActros 600.
The bigger modification to the truck will be the “motorhome-style” body built onto the back of it by Bliss Mobil, a company that builds living areas for overlanding expedition vehicles. The body hasn’t been built yet, but Wagner has some renders of what it might look like.
Accompanying Wagner on his trip will be his dog, Krümelix (“crumbs”), who he says will be his “charging station nose,” and potentially some random guests along the way (as his eActros has been fitted with a full passenger seat, rather than the uncomfortable jumpseats often seen on heavy duty vehicles).
After countless tours through 22 countries, I know one thing for sure: electric trucks in long-distance transport work without any problems. To convince even the last skeptics, I am following in the footsteps of Jules Verne – though I’m not traveling around the world in 80 days, but in 80 charging stations! For such an adventure, the eActros 600, with its enormous battery capacity, efficiency, and body options, is the perfect companion. That is why I wanted to use this vehicle specifically to show that electromobility in heavy transport has long since arrived in real-world operation.
-Tobias Wagner, the Elektrotrucker
He’ll be posting videos about the experience, and we’re looking forward to hearing more about it.
Electrek’s Take
One of the first articles I wrote here on Electrek, nearly ten years ago, was about another around-the-world EV trip which included 9 Teslas, a Denza and a bus. That trip was hosted by Rafael de Mestre, who the first person to circumnavigate the globe in an electric vehicle, a Tesla Roadster, in 2012. de Mestre has now done the feat four times (and we caught up with him on his third trip).
So, maybe this won’t be the first heavy duty electric vehicle of any type to do the trip, as the Hungarian bus mentioned above gets that crown, but we don’t know of any electric semi trucks to do it, so there’s still a first happening there.
I also met up with Chris and Julie Ramsey, who drove a Nissan Ariya from the North Pole to the South Pole, becoming the first vehicle of any type to do that journey.
These stunts are fun and impractical, but make a reasonable point about EVs. So many people think that EVs only work in specific situations, but these adventurers prove that that’s not the case.
Electricity is not hard to find in the modern world, and there are many ways to generate electricity, either from any sort of motion, heat, or even by something as simple as sunlight (as opposed to oil – the only way you can generate that is to let living material decompose underground for literally millions of years). All you need is a way to get it from wherever it is and into the vehicle you want it in, and that just takes a few wires.
So, building on this history of adventurers who have driven vehicles into places that were certainly not ready for them – whether it be Kazakhstan and Inner Mongolia in a Tesla Roadster in 2012 or an electric bus in 2016, or the South Pole in a Nissan Ariya in 2023 – Wagner’s plan to cross the Andes and Western Sahara in an electric semi in 2026 adds another feather to the hat of electric vehicles, showing that your 50-mile drayage route in Corpus Christi is maybe not as difficult to electrify as your fleet sales representative might think it is.
(Now if only Daimler didn’t lobby against electric trucks while also supporting this trip…)
Charge your electric vehicle at home using rooftop solar panels. Find a reliable and competitively priced solar installer near you on EnergySage, for free. They have pre-vetted installers competing for your business, ensuring high-quality solutions and 20-30% savings. It’s free, with no sales calls until you choose an installer. Compare personalized solar quotes online and receive guidance from unbiased Energy Advisers. Get started here. – ad*
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
