Mercedes Crashed An Electric Truck On Purpose. Here’s What Happened To The Battery

• Mercedes-Benz crash-tested an eActros 600 electric truck.
• The German company simulated a car ramming into the side of the truck, where some of the batteries are located.
• The eActros 600’s high-voltage battery has over 600 kWh of energy.

Electric vehicle battery fires are once again in the spotlight, after Jeep recalled over 300,000 plug-in hybrids because their high-voltage packs could go up in flames. That’s attention-grabbing, sure, but the reality is that modern EV batteries are extremely safe.

To prove that, Mercedes-Benz crashed an eActros 600 truck on purpose, simulating a car ramming into one side of the electric chassis, where some of the batteries are housed. As a reminder, the eActros 600 is powered by a huge 621-kilowatt-hour lithium iron phosphate battery pack that’s split into three separate compartments.

During the crash test, a car-like vehicle weighing over 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms) smashed into the right side of Mercedes-Benz’s electric truck at a speed of over 31 miles per hour (50 kilometers per hour). According to the truck maker, this is a typical impact in the heavy-duty trucking world.

So, what happened to the batteries? Well, nothing. “Despite the considerable force exerted, the entire high-voltage battery system and all electrical components remained intact,” Mercedes-Benz Trucks said. That’s reassuring, especially for a vehicle that has seven times the battery capacity of the Chevrolet Equinox EV.

Mercedes-Benz said that the high-voltage battery modules remained intact and that their housing showed no critical deformations, thanks to a frame architecture specifically designed to take a beating in heavy-duty collisions.

Before the real-world crash test was conducted, the truck maker performed several virtual simulations, and the results were similar to the real thing. “The results clearly confirm our expectations; there would have been no danger here in practical use,” said Frank Müller, Head of Accident Research & Passive Safety at Mercedes-Benz Trucks.

The Mercedes-Benz eActros went into production last year, but the German company is still doing physical testing on a regular basis, so that new findings can be integrated into future iterations of the truck. With a 621 kWh battery pack, the eActros 600 is capable of delivering 310 miles (500 km) of range on a full charge with a gross combination weight of 80,000 lbs (40 tons). 

With Europe’s mandatory driver breaks taken into account, the battery-powered big rig can comfortably cover over 600 miles per day if there’s a powerful enough DC fast charger mid-journey. Currently, Mercedes-Benz’s big EV can be charged at up to 400 kW from a CCS2 charger, but the power electronics will be able to handle Megawatt charging when the MCS standard is up and running.