Germany abandons €190m overhead line truck project after failure

Germany spends €190m on overhead line trucks: the trial ends

Can a country electrify heavy transport by hanging cables over highways? Germany tried this with Siemens. Three pilot sections, €190 million invested, and an uncomfortable conclusion: emission reductions stalled between 16% and 22%. This was not a calculation error. It is the result of years of testing on the A5, A1, and B462, plagued by GPS failures, defective insulators, and a pantograph that retracts if the truck deviates even slightly. The idea was not new—trolleybuses have existed since the 1950s—but the technological packaging made it seem revolutionary.

What was tested and the cost of the German experiment

The system powered the truck's electric motor via an overhead line, much like a trolleybus. The small onboard battery was reserved for maneuvering and cable-free sections. For the rest of the time, a conventional diesel engine provided traction. The stated goal was to achieve the best possible CO2 balance through diesel savings.

The numbers did not hold up. According to research by the Technical University of Darmstadt, greenhouse gas savings were between 16% and 21%, with an optimistic ceiling of 22%. To justify such a range, an infrastructure of thousands of kilometers would be needed across Europe. Daimler Trucks CEO Martin Daum summarized it in October 2021: overhead lines would require a network that no public budget could sustain.

Why overhead line trucks failed in practice

Technical issues were not anecdotal. GPS positioning failed, mast insulators were defective, and the pantograph required manual intervention. Thomas Mast, director of the logistics company Fahrner, described the routine: pressing a button to deploy it, monitoring the position under the cable, and assuming any lateral deviation would trigger a safety retraction. Nothing was automatic. Every disconnection meant lost time and less flexibility for the company.

Some argue the problem was not the technology but the lack of full infrastructure. This argument has logic: a system covering only 40 kilometers can never demonstrate its true potential. However, the counter-argument is that the resulting truck is a diesel hybrid, not a zero-emission vehicle, and the maximum 22% saving does not offset the cost per installed kilometer.

Railways solved this a century ago

The most frequent criticism comes not from engineering but from common sense. Electric highways already exist: they are called railways. Paul Hegge, spokesperson for the Belgian Freight Rail Transport Forum, put it this way: electric routes with overhead lines are inflexible but ideal for long distances. Trains have been electrified for over a century, and no one has had to invent a pantograph for trucks.

France is studying similar trials in Alsace. Belgium is considering installing overhead lines in Flanders. Both initiatives come after Germany decided to dismantle its first line. The prevailing question is why there is insistence on a model that has already failed in the country best equipped to fund it.

The real cost of electrifying the road

The full calculation, broken down item by item, includes the steel for the masts, the concrete for the foundations, anti-corrosion coatings, and additional electricity generation. If that electricity comes from coal, as occurs in certain parts of the German energy mix, the final balance shrinks almost to nothing. The 22% emission reduction is calculated at the exhaust pipe, not across the entire atmosphere.

Added to this is the weight of batteries in conventional electric trucks, which reduces payload capacity and forces the use of volumetric weight in transport cost calculations. The European Union opted for hydrogen to avoid this problem. The overhead line promised the same without a fuel cell, but in exchange for a fixed network that no logistics operator can amortize.

What remains of the project and what comes next

The A5 section between Frankfurt and Darmstadt, the A1 between Lübeck and Reinfeld, and the B462 near Rastatt were the showcase for an idea that seemed simple. Today, they serve as proof that a technically possible system can be economically absurd. The €190 million invested did not buy a solution; it bought a data point: the maximum saving is 22%.

Transport operators already knew this without needing pilot trials. A truck that relies on a cable and disconnects at the slightest deviation is not suitable for deliveries in industrial estates, warehouses, or scattered markets. The heavy transport route network is infinite. The overhead line network, by definition, is not.

Ultimately, the German experiment leaves a lesson that no report captures: you can spend €190 million to confirm what a driver tells you at a bar. The only question is how many countries will repeat the bill before accepting it.