For all non-Insiders/Germans this might be a strange story, but it is really true: Back in time, like 4-5 years ago Deutsche Post wanted to order electric vehicle trucks but all suppliers denied, so Deutsche Post – internationally know as DHL, which they actually acquired a few years back -founded a new company the StreetScooter GmbH and started building it’s own e-trucks.
After two smaller trucks and two e-bikes, the company now presented the new StreetScooter Work XL with a capacity of up to 200 packages and a distance from 80-200 km, based on a variable battery system of 30 or 90 kWh. This truck will be build in a cooperation with Ford.
Currently Deutsche Posts uses more then 2500 of the smaller StreetScooters and wants to build up to 10000 StreetScooters yearly. Just as a sidenote: Mercedes Benz plans to build yearly 1500 similar e-Trucks but not before 2020.
So, like Tesla Motors the StreetScooter GmbH seems to have a first mover/thinking advantage towards the traditional manufactures…