DB Schenker expands sustainable city logistics in Norway

Global logistics services provider DB Schenker has teamed up with Daimler Trucks’ FUSO brand to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in Norway, expanding DB Schenker’s electric vehicle fleet and highlighting “the importance of electric mobility”. 

Back in October 2020, DB Schenker and Daimler Trucks announced that they would be extending their trailblazing partnership. Among other things, the partners’ new plans called for 41 FUSO eCanter trucks to be used on a daily basis in 11 European countries in order to help lower pollutant emissions in cities throughout Europe. 

The vehicles have since been built, and FUSO has been handing them over to DB Schenker since the beginning of the year, most recently in France, Finland, the UK, the Netherlands, Spain, and Austria. 

Now, the logistics services provider is strengthening its electric vehicle fleet with the addition of eight locally emission-free FUSO eCanter trucks in Oslo as well. With a total of 41 eCanter trucks, DB Schenker claimed that it “now has the largest electric vehicle fleet in the world and is FUSO's largest electric fleet customer”.

DB Schenker opened its Oslo City Hub – with a total area of approximately 500 sqm – in Norway’s capital in 2019, describing the Oslo City Hub as “a true hub from which all deliveries within the city centre are made using electric vehicles and electric bikes”. 

The company said this hub had enabled the international logistics services provider to “reduce its CO2 emissions from inner-city deliveries in Oslo to zero”, adding: “The use of some 40 electric vehicles enables 800 locally emission-free deliveries to be made each day in Oslo.” 

On a global scale, DB Schenker is pursuing the goal of reducing its specific greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 as compared to 2006. The implementation of the sustainable urban logistics concept in Oslo “represents an important milestone on the way to achieving this goal”, it said.

Cyrille Bonjean, Head of Land Transport Europe at DB Schenker, commented: “DB Schenker has declared 2021 to be an ‘ECO Year’ in which the company will focus more strongly on environmental protection. I’m therefore all the more pleased to see that this year especially, and with the help of our partner Daimler Trucks, we will be taking a major step forward toward achieving our goal of making Europe’s cities emission-free.”

Frank Rohde, Head of Fleet Sales FUSO Europe, commented: “DB Schenker’s innovative 'Oslo City Hub' is an impressive demonstration of what logistics could look like in the future. We are pleased to be part of this project with eight FUSO eCanter. Together with our partner DB Schenker, we prove that with the FUSO eCanter truck, locally emission- and noise-free inner-city distribution is already possible.”  

The FUSO eCanter is Daimler Trucks’ first fully electric light truck produced in a small-batch series. FUSO celebrated the market launch of the urban distribution vehicle back in 2017. The FUSO eCanter has since been delivered to numerous customers in Europe, Japan, and the US and has proved to be a reliable locally emission-free light truck. 

More than 200 FUSO eCanter trucks are now being used by customers around the world every day. In addition, the global FUSO eCanter fleet has now clocked up more than three million kilometres of driving, which corresponds to approximately 75 trips around the world.