DEFRU Logistik GmbH, a German haulier led by managing partner Hendrik Müller, has switched 30 of its heavy prime movers to electric power over the past year. The tractors are Mercedes-Benz eActros 600 models, and Electrek reported on Nov. 9 that each one runs about 1,000 kilometers, roughly 620 miles, of German autobahn every day. The deployment surfaced through a LinkedIn post from a Mercedes-Benz retail manager.
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Six hundred twenty miles is about double what one battery charge delivers, so the schedule depends on charging being folded into the working day.
DEFRU’s thirty-truck switch and who announced it
Benjamin Budick, senior manager for Mercedes-Benz Trucks’ own retail operation in Dortmund and Haan, announced the handover on LinkedIn and posted photos of the tractors in DEFRU livery. Electrek’s Jo Borrás relayed the post in a Nov. 9 report, which says the trucks cover that distance seven days a week. Neither Budick nor Müller is quoted directly; the account rests on Budick’s post as Electrek summarized it, plus DEFRU’s own company page. Because the account is secondhand, the thirty-truck count and the daily distance are best read as DEFRU’s own claim as passed along by its Mercedes dealer contact, not as audited telemetry.
Thirty tractors is a sizeable block for a single contract haulier in a market where electric heavy trucks still arrive mostly in batches of a handful. Electrek says the fleet runs at an average combined weight of 36 metric tons, about 79,400 pounds, which is a loaded long-haul figure rather than a light distribution round. Mercedes’ own fleet data across about 80 trucks puts consumption at 1.61 kilowatt-hours per mile at that weight, according to Electrek’s earlier winter-efficiency report. Daimler Truck states that the eActros 600 is designed for a gross combination mass of up to 44 tons and carries roughly 22 tons of payload with a standard EU semitrailer, so a 36-ton average sits comfortably inside the design envelope.
621 kilowatt-hours, three battery packs and a 500-kilometer leg
Daimler Truck’s technical release on the eActros 600 lists three 207-kilowatt-hour packs for 621 kilowatt-hours nominal, using lithium iron phosphate cells with more than 95 percent of capacity usable. Mercedes quotes about 500 kilometers without intermediate charging, measured internally at 40 tons gross weight and 20 degrees Celsius, and cautions that the figure may differ from values under EU Regulation 2017/2400. The pack is designed for up to 1.2 million kilometers over ten years with health still above 80 percent.
The same release says more than 1,000 kilometers a day is possible when charging happens during mandatory driver breaks and a charger is available. DEFRU’s reported distance sits right on that mark. In arithmetic terms, a 1,000-kilometer day is two full battery legs, and Electrek says the trucks charge along the route or while being loaded and unloaded at the destination.
Seifert, FERCAM and Logistik Schmitt as comparison points
Daimler’s analysis covered November 2025 to March 2026, with more than 3,000 tours and 3,100 charging events drawn from telemetry on over 15 vehicles. The Seifert route between Wörth am Rhein and Bielefeld averaged about 600 kilometers a day at 36 tons, used roughly 100 kilowatt-hours per 100 kilometers in winter, and saved more than 4,000 euros a month in tolls and about 90 metric tons of CO2 equivalent a year. The telemetry behind those route figures covers more than 15 vehicles, a smaller base than the roughly 80 eActros trucks running in Mercedes’ production network.
FERCAM, running from South Tyrol to Wörth, also logged about 600 kilometers a day, at up to 42 tons, using 92 kilowatt-hours per 100 kilometers on average while recovering 25 through regenerative braking. Logistik Schmitt’s Germersheim shuttle is a different animal: eight runs a day covering 352 kilometers at 30 tons. Against those references, DEFRU’s reported daily distance is roughly two-thirds higher than the two long-haul routes.
Toll relief is a large part of the operator economics in Daimler’s examples. Seifert’s saving of more than 4,000 euros a month and FERCAM’s 3,900 euros a month are both reported alongside roughly 90 metric tons of CO2 equivalent avoided each year. Whether DEFRU receives comparable toll relief at its much higher mileage is not stated in any of the material published so far, and neither is the share of its charging done at public stations versus depots.
Open questions on DEFRU’s reported mileage
Nothing published so far breaks the 1,000-kilometer figure into charging stops, dwell times or energy cost, and it is not clear whether it is a fleet average or a typical day on the busiest routes. Amazon’s order of 50 eActros trucks in Germany, covered by Electrek in September, gives a second large German deployment to measure against once more utilization data appears. Electrek’s reader comments point to 350-to-600-kilowatt chargers spreading across Europe as the enabler, which is plausible but is not DEFRU’s stated charging arrangement.
Electrek notes that the eActros range now spans more than 40 configurations, with two cab designs, two or three battery packs and several wheelbases. Whether DEFRU or Mercedes releases per-truck charging logs for the thirty tractors is the question that would settle how much of the 620-mile day is driving and how much is waiting on a plug.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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