Even China’s Truck Makers Are Building EVs In Europe Now

SuperPanther and Sinotruk are now assembling electric trucks in Austria, thanks to a local contract manufacturing company.

Photo by: SuperPanther

Iulian Dnistran

By: Iulian Dnistran

Jul 30, at 7:10am ET

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Chinese electric truck companies are expanding their European presence.
SuperPanther and Sinotruck are following in the footsteps of Xpeng and GAC, using local contract manufacturers.
The move lowers costs and allows small brands to move quickly.

SuperPanther sounds like a cartoon character, but it’s actually one of the few Chinese truck companies that have managed to establish a presence in Europe. The name is just four years old, and yet it has tapped into the region’s contract manufacturing sector to assemble and deliver big rigs faster than traditional brands.

The startup’s eTopas 600 battery-powered model—which sounds like a jab at the Mercedes-Benz eActros 600— is now rolling off Steyr Automotive’s assembly line in Austria, with the first finished units going to customers like DHL, Gress, Temmel, and Lontex. Sinotruk, China's largest heavy truck manufacturer, made the same move back in March.

SuperPanther eTopas 600

Photo by: SuperPanther

Both manufacturers are following in the footsteps of several Chinese automakers, which have chosen local facilities that are already up and running to supercharge their expansion plans. Last year, Xpeng and GAC started rolling out finished EVs from Magna’s plant in Austria—the same facility that used to assemble the ill-fated Fisker Ocean and the discontinued Jaguar I-Pace.

For now, Steyr Automotive is assembling both truck companies’ models using the semi-knocked-down (SKD) method, with pre-assembled modules being shipped to the manufacturer’s facility, where they’re put together and then shipped. The contract manufacturer said Sinotruck is planning to tap into its on-site cab manufacturing line and paint booth as volume increases.

Sinotruk's Sitrak truck

Photo by: Sinotruk

On the tech side, the SuperPanther eTopas 600 has a pretty impressive list of features. It’s powered by a massive, CATL-supplied 621-kilowatt-hour lithium-iron-phosphate battery that sends energy to a pair of electric motors that are integrated into a single e-axle.

The powertrain delivers 528 horsepower (394 kilowatts) continuously, but can up that figure to 928 hp (692 kW) when pushed hard. The battery is rated at 876 volts and can accept over 640 kW of power from two chargers simultaneously through the two CCS2 ports. During charging testing, the eTopas 600 peaked at 646.7 kW and averaged an impressive 635 kW, leading to a sub-38-minute 20-to-80% session.

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SuperPanther’s European tractor cab has an unladen weight of 10.8 tonnes, while the gross combination weight is 42 tonnes. Range-wise, the vehicle can deliver around 373 miles (600 kilometers) under real conditions with a mixed payload without fully discharging. The company claims that the average energy consumption of the test fleet has hovered around 1.53 kWh/mile (0.95 kWh/km), making it more efficient than Tesla’s Semi, which is known to consume between 1.55kWh/mile and 1.7 kWh/mile in the real world.

Steyr Automotive, the company tapped by SuperPanther and Sinotruk, specializes in retrofitting existing trucks with special equipment, but it’s also a player in the engineering, painting, and contract manufacturing business.