Denmark's largest car transporter goes electric on cross-border run

Danish vehicle logistics company Dansk Auto Logik has put a battery-electric car transporter based on the Mercedes-Benz eActros 600 into service on a fixed route between its base in Vamdrup, southern Denmark, and the port city of Bremerhaven in northern Germany - a run of more than 380km that the company says it is completing on a single charge outbound, with public charging on the return leg.

The eActros 600 is not the first electric car transporter on European roads. Swiss firm Designwerk and trailer specialist Kässbohrer have been delivering an electric car transporter built on a Volvo FM chassis since 2023, with a larger 1,000 kWh battery and a claimed range of 510km. But the Danish deployment is as much an infrastructure test as a vehicle one - whether public chargers between Scandinavia and Germany can support cross-border electric freight on a daily commercial schedule.

How the car transporter works

The setup is a 4x2 eActros 600 tractor unit with a ProCabin cab pulling a two-axle car transporter trailer, configured to carry up to 6 vehicles per trip. A diesel car transporter in a similar tractor-trailer configuration might carry more - the battery weight of the eActros 600's three 207 kWh packs (621 kWh total) inevitably eats into payload - though Daimler Truck does not address the comparison directly.

A separate battery is installed on the trailer itself to power the hydraulic systems used during loading and unloading, so the truck's main batteries are not drained by the physical work of getting cars on and off the transporter. It is a small engineering decision, but a sensible one - hydraulic car transporter equipment is energy-hungry, and every kilowatt-hour spent lifting ramps is a kilowatt-hour not spent driving.

Charging across the border

Dansk Auto Logik has invested in its own charging infrastructure at Vamdrup, where the eActros 600 charges fully before each outbound run to Bremerhaven. The return leg relies on public charging stations along the German motorway network. The company says the deployment is partly an exercise in evaluating "the existing charging infrastructure and economic efficiency in cross-border transport between Denmark and Germany" - or, put plainly, finding out whether the public chargers along the route are reliable enough and fast enough to make cross-border electric freight commercially viable.

Charging network operator Milence opened a hub in Padborg in June, right on the Denmark-Germany border, with 4 rapid chargers delivering up to 400 kW - directly on this route. The Scandinavian-Mediterranean freight corridor running from Sweden through Denmark and Germany into Italy is one of 2 routes targeted by the EU's Clean Transport Corridor Initiative, which aims to enable seamless electric truck transit by 2027. Germany, meanwhile, has approved €1.6 billion in funding for heavy commercial vehicle charging hubs along its motorway network.

The eActros 600's broadening portfolio

The eActros 600 has been in series production since November 2024 at Mercedes-Benz's Wörth plant, and now operates in more than 15 European countries. Mercedes-Benz Trucks says it held 35% market share in the EU30 medium and heavy-duty battery-electric truck segment in 2025, ahead of Volvo. Notable orders include 150 units from Dutch logistics operator Simon Loos and a deployment with the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team across all 9 European races this season - the first F1 team to use an electric truck throughout a full European calendar.

The car transporter application is a newer frontier for the platform, and vehicle logistics suits electrification well in principle - fixed routes, predictable loads, depot-based operations. Lars Vestergaard, Dansk Auto Logik's CEO, said the company made "a conscious decision to enter electric long-haul transport now, to gain our own experience." He drove the first 400km himself. "I have never driven a truck that drives so well," he said.

The eActros 600 has 3 LFP (lithium iron phosphate) battery packs totalling 621 kWh, delivering a claimed range of 500km at 40 tonnes gross combination mass. Mercedes-Benz Trucks says the vehicle is designed for 1.2 million km over 10 years, with battery state of health above 80% at end of life. The model range has recently expanded to over 40 base vehicle variants, including 2 cab sizes, a choice of 2 or 3 battery packs, and new axle configurations.

Dansk Auto Logik describes itself as Denmark's largest car transportation company. It did not disclose which vehicles it is transporting on the Bremerhaven route, or how many trips per week the eActros 600 is completing.