BENSHEIM (dpa-AFX) - Service station operator Aral wants to advance electrification in trucking with a corridor of e-charging stations at truck stops. Aral inaugurated a route in Bensheim, southern Hesse, on Monday with representatives of the German Federal Ministry of Digital Affairs and Transport that will enable electric trucks to travel long distances from southwestern Germany to the Ruhr region.

The corridor will connect eight charging stations in the future, each with a capacity of 300 kilowatts, Aral explained on Monday. Six of them are located at Aral car stations in Schwegenheim in southern Palatinate, Bensheim, Rüsselsheim, Rheinböllen, Düsseldorf and Dortmund. In the coming months, a further charging station will be added in Bad Honnef on the A3 and in Cologne. At each of the stations, there will be two charging columns, each with two charging points, and they will be designed with extra-wide and long lanes for trucks. More than 20 trucks per day and charging station can draw green electricity for a range of up to 200 kilometers during the legally prescribed driver break of 45 minutes.

Only a small fraction of heavy trucks in Germany have been electrified so far. One hurdle is that e-trucks need larger batteries than cars and powerful charging stations to make charging practical in the tightly scheduled daily logistics routine. Until now, e-trucks usually had to return to their home depot to charge, Aral said.

With the corridor, Aral is investing in a new line of business, it said. The strategy is to meet demand from truck manufacturers, said Alexander Junge, Aral board member for e-mobility, according to the statement. Aral is working with commercial vehicle manufacturer Daimler Truck, which operates its main truck plant in Wörth in southern Palatinate.

"In order to significantly reduce CO2 emissions in road freight transport as well, e-trucks will play a central role in regional transport as well as in long-distance transport," said Johannes Pallasch, spokesman for the management team of the National Charging Infrastructure Control Center. He added that the company was working with the German Federal Ministry of Transport on a tender for a Germany-wide truck charging network along long-distance routes./als/DP/stk