“Team Sauberes Karlsruhe” (TSK), the municipal waste-management organisation in Karlsruhe, has deployed seven Mercedes-Benz eEconic electric refuse trucks for citywide operations and has placed a follow-up order for eleven more units. Once delivered, the city will operate 18 electric refuse trucks as part of its transition toward a cleaner municipal fleet.
The seven trucks have been running across all districts of Karlsruhe for several weeks. They support residual waste collection, paper pickup and bulky-waste services. The vehicles use rear-loader bodies supplied by Faun, with two adapted for bulky refuse and five fitted with multi-purpose Variopress units.
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Daimler Truck said the eEconic models are designed to complete daily routes of 80 kilometres—and in some cases more than 100 kilometres—without intermediate charging, supported by three battery packs providing a total installed capacity of 336 kWh.
TSK employs around 540 staff and oversees waste collection, street cleaning, winter services and municipal fleet operations. The organisation tested its first electric truck in September, reporting that the vehicle completed its route of roughly 80 kilometres and 60 stops while using only about a third of its battery capacity.
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Charging infrastructure for the current fleet includes two 400 kW power units supplying eight 100 kW charging points, managed by an energy-management system that can optimise and prioritise power distribution.
The planned expansion follows a year-long evaluation programme conducted between August 2024 and September 2025 to assess electric truck performance in refuse operations. The procurement was supported by the now-discontinued KsNI scheme. TSK has committed to fully transitioning its fleet to alternative drives by 2035, with the exception of a small emergency reserve.
