ABB E-mobility's megawatt charging system previews the future of trucking

Clean Trucking spoke to ABB E-mobility at the 2025 ACT Expo about its advanced MCS 1200 charger, a 1.2 megawatt system designed to keep long-haul electric trucks on the road with minimal downtime.

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Updated Jun 12, 2025
Transcript

Range continues to be one of the biggest and most legitimate concerns regarding battery-electric-powered long-haul commercial trucks.

But there's another major issue keeping many electric trucking fleets up at night: charging downtime. Every minute not on the road matters.

Enter ABB E-mobility. 

At this year's ACT Expo, Clean Trucking had the opportunity to interview Christopher Thompson, head of product and portfolio marketing, about the company's driver-focused MCS 1200, a 1.2 megawatt charging system. 

The system enables high-speed charging during mandatory 30-minute driver breaks. Equally important, the charger's user interface is customizable for fleet operators and allows for app-based and RFID-based access control that provides fleets options for how drivers authenticate and pay.

Transcript

Christopher Thompson 

This is our 1.2MW mix 1200 charger, basically to keep trucks on the road that have mix outlets for transportation and logistics companies. 

 

Jay Traugott 

Tell us, exactly what are we looking at here? Because this is a critical piece of charging infrastructure. Before we go any further, if you're enjoying clean trucking news and videos, you can get more delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter using the link in the description below. 

 

Christopher Thompson 

So what I'd like to show you. We have a dual cabinet here because it's all about safety when you're dealing with, 1.2MW. So what we have over here is everything to chill the cable, because you have a lot of power running through this cable. Over here you have all the fuses and the power electronics. What we're showcasing today, this is actually the charged post that dispenses the energy. 

 

Christopher Thompson 

What's behind there is three 400 kilowatt cabinets that make up the 1.2MW power that's delivered to the trucks. So what's important here that you have a IK ten. Why is that important? You have big trucks coming that might open the door. And so you need safety and flexibility. And you also give the, the light up here. So you get visibility to the truck because it's built for how high the cab is. 

 

Jay Traugott 

Very. You very much done your homework? The measurements? 

  

Christopher Thompson 

Yeah. So I'd like to focus on a couple of things that we do really well. First is the screen. 

 

Jay Traugott 

So obviously you have something a bit of a surprise for us. My name is already into the system here. 

  

Christopher Thompson 

So this is what we call our experience domain. So it's actually across our entire portfolio. This is basically allowing brands to express themselves. When we put these megawatt charging cabinets and connectors into the market today. So you're able to configure things like the logo, a message and the person's name. 

 

Jay Traugott 

There's a mobile app. It says the get app at the bottom corner there. 

 

Christopher Thompson 

Exactly. If you want to drive people as a business to use an app, or if you're a trucking company that has RFID cards, you can change that to use your RFID card. So it's really flexible in terms of payment and authentication. 

 

Jay Traugott 

Okay. So let's take a look at it a little more in depth. 

 

Christopher Thompson 

Yeah let's do that. So for example what we do is when you come in to charge you have this wonderful megawatt charging connector. And as you pull this out you have the actual torque that aligns with the inlet of the mix outlet on the truck. So why don't you take a hold of that, see what that is? 

 

Jay Traugott 

Yeah. It's not too heavy. 

 

Christopher Thompson 

No it's not. And actually, if you come over here and you put this back, we see all what you notice is that this is not straight up. It's actually positioned where you take it out in. The torque is perfectly positioned to the inlet. So you bring that back and you can do that even one handed. 

  

Jay Traugott 

It's very easy on the wrist. 

 

Christopher Thompson 

Yes, exactly. 

 

Jay Traugott 

That's a very smart design feature. 

  

Christopher Thompson 

Yes. So let's just walk through here. Again, it's very easy. It says to connect to your vehicle. So we were able to do that. You confirm the range. So you can imagine if you have a membership like we talked about with the RFID card different rates. Now if I move forward, as we talked about, do you want to push someone to an app payment RFID? 

 

Christopher Thompson 

What we've done is we've configured this to use your app, but you can actually make that, more or less options of having 1 to 3 and drive people to what you want to use. So I use my app. Then you start charging. What we offer is also the ability to follow your charge. So if you have a mobile phone, you take it out and you scan the QR code. 

  

Christopher Thompson 

So what you see here is that you're able to take this away with you and know the exact status of your you're charging when you're away getting, coffee or a lunch. 

 

Jay Traugott 

And I like it. It's very nice that you can have the estimated total price as well, or you're even done charging. 

 

Christopher Thompson 

Yes. So let's move forward. You have again, the color accent. So I return the connector and your brand. So we took it from your website. So that matches, everything from the website along with the app icon there for your website. So charging is done. We return the connector. Thank you for charging with us. You can personalize this message. 

 

Christopher Thompson 

You have all the details here. So then we we finish here. Have a safe trip. You have your logo and you're able to offer, outro screen as well. So these are things that we configured for our customers. So if you have, something that you want to put there, you're able to do that right now. 

  

Jay Traugott 

What's the charging time is going to be like? It's obviously going to vary from vehicle to vehicle as the type of battery that running. 

 

Christopher Thompson 

When you have 1.2MW of power delivering to a truck. This is actually configured for the break time that's mandated by the government. So in Europe, that's a 45 minute break time in the US is 30 minutes. So that you're able to do like half you're out, have your lunch break, fill up your truck and then complete your route. 

 

Christopher Thompson 

So this is, what this is made for today. 

 

Jay Traugott 

Very cool. When are we going to see them out there on the road? 

 

Christopher Thompson 

So a for mix system. We should see, relatively shortly. We are involved in several semipublic, projects to test the interoperability with trucking companies. 

 

Jay Traugott 

Thank you very much. And if anyone has any additional questions, please leave them for me in the comments and I'll be sure to get to them. Don't forget to like and subscribe to our channel and I'll see you all next time. 

 

 

Jay Traugott has covered the automotive and transportation sector for over a decade and now serves as Senior Editor for Clean Trucking. He holds a drifting license and has driven on some of the world's best race tracks, including the Nurburgring and Spa. He lives near Boulder, Colorado and spends his free time snowboarding and backcountry hiking. He can be reached at [email protected].

Hydrogen Fuel Cell & BEV Survey
The following survey was sent as a link in an email cover message in February 2023 to the newsletter lists for Overdrive and CCJ. After approximately two weeks, a total of 176 owner-operators under their own authority, 113 owner-operators leased or assigned to a carrier and 82 fleet executives and 36 fleet employees from fleets with 10 or more power units had completed and submitted the questionnaire for a total of 407 qualified responses. Cross-tabulations based on respondent type are provided for each question when applicable.
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