The end of 2024 also marked the end of the overhead line truck research project. For this, the German government had supported the three test routes in Hesse, Baden-Württemberg and Schleswig-Holstein with a total of 134.2 million euros in recent years. The aim of the project was to determine whether this technology is suitable for electrifying road freight transport or whether other options – such as hydrogen or battery-electric drive systems – are superior. After all, although all the technological options should be considered, not all of them can be promoted in the long term, as they are all associated with considerable costs for the development of the corresponding charging infrastructure.
And what happens next? “There are no plans to continue funding the test routes,” a spokesperson for the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) explains, adding that this was explicitly a research project. “And since all essential findings have been obtained as part of this research, there are no objective reasons to continue with the test operation.”
However, it is unclear what these findings will reveal. Claims were repeatedly circulated that there were considerable technical problems during the test operation, that the ecological benefits were unclear and that the economic viability was doubtful. After a supposedly “devastating Fraunhofer study” (BILD) in the fall of 2023, the trial was considered a failure by many even before the project had officially come to an end. However, back then, Dr. Till Gnann had merely indicated that the expansion of an overhead line infrastructure would be very challenging. If we want this, we need a quick decision and a clear signal, the Fraunhofer research coordinator stated at the time. Today he says that he was “not all that happy” about the tabloid newspaper's interpretation. After all, the tests were about nothing other than creating a scientifically sound basis for decision-making in order to be able to give precisely this signal.
It can therefore be concluded at this stage that the idea of overhead lines is dead from a political perspective, at least. Scientifically, it is very much still alive: “The data collected as part of the field test will be evaluated in the first half of 2025,” a spokesperson for Autobahn GmbH, which is responsible for the infrastructure, told VDE dialog. Nothing can be said before then.
