Daimler's LFP eCitaro, Long Beach megawatt chargers, 50 Semis for Chicago

Three heavy electric vehicle stories from November 5 to 11, 2026: Daimler Buses showed a next-generation eCitaro city bus built around LFP batteries, Forum Mobility opened two megawatt chargers at the Port of Long Beach, and Tesla said Chicago's first 50 Semis are on their way.

Daimler's next eCitaro switches to LFP cells

Daimler Buses presented the first near-production prototype of the next-generation Mercedes-Benz eCitaro at its eMobility Days in Munich on November 10, 2026, with a new battery chemistry. Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells replace the current bus's NMC cells, packaged as standardized compact packs of around 50 kWh; depending on length and duty, a solo bus can take six to twelve and an articulated one eight to 14, according to Daimler's technical release. Up to three combinable charging interfaces (CCS2, pantograph and charging rail) take up to 450 kW.

The current eCitaro sits on the platform of the conventionally powered Citaro; the new one is developed from the ground up as an electric bus, on a platform that uses components from the Mercedes-Benz Trucks portfolio. Daimler says designing around the electric drive cuts the articulated bus's curb weight by around 750 kg. The low-floor versions use ZF's AxTrax 2 LF electric portal axle with a system output of up to 360 kW, against about 280 kW peak for the current axle, enough that the articulated bus needs only one driven axle. Low-entry versions get a central motor and up to 100 km/h for interurban routes.

The bus premieres officially at Busworld Europe in Brussels in October 2027, and Daimler plans to launch it in 2028, ten years after the first eCitaro. Daimler's companion release has development led from Mannheim and production planned in Germany, France and the Czech Republic, and says that from 2030 Daimler Buses intends to offer only electrically powered city buses in its European new-vehicle business. Two out of three city buses sold in Europe in 2025 were electric, by Daimler's analyses, and the company still wants the subsidies: the same release asks Germany to keep electric bus funding at its current level, and the EU to push the CO₂ target year for intercity buses and coaches from 2030 to 2033, citing charging infrastructure it says is at least three years behind schedule.

Forum Mobility opens two megawatt chargers at the Port of Long Beach

Forum Mobility added two v4 Megawatt Charging Standard (MCS) chargers to FM Harbor, its truck charging depot at the Port of Long Beach, at a ribbon-cutting on November 5, 2026 that included the first charge sessions of a customer's new production-model Tesla Semi, the company said on November 6. Forum says the chargers can recover up to 60% of a Semi's range in 30 minutes. The California Electric Transportation Coalition, of which Forum is a member, put them at up to 1,200 kW, roughly four times the rate of the depot's approximately 44 CCS dispensers.

Tesla calls them Megachargers. Tesla's charging account posted on November 6 that "2 Forum Megachargers are now operational in the Port of Long Beach, CA" as part of its Semi for Business program for private sites. Public Megacharger stalls are spreading too: Pilot opened six at Ellabell, Georgia in October.

CEO Matt LeDucq called the two units the first of 30 MW of MCS chargers Forum has coming online, and the company says it is building an additional 30 MW of charging at four new depots, in Rancho Dominguez, Ontario and two in Oakland, California. Forum lists 25 carriers with contracted capacity and customer reservations for more than 330 Tesla Semis. Its next tranche of depots in development includes Chicago, which is where Tesla's latest batch of Semis is headed.

Tesla says Chicago's first 50 Semis are en route

"Chicago's first 50 Semis en route for delivery," Tesla's Semi account posted on November 11, 2026, without naming a customer. HMD Trucking, a Chicago-area carrier that ordered 50 Semis in September, told Drive Tesla that it received its first on November 2, 2026, and that it is the first Tesla Semi registered in Illinois. Electrek, calling HMD's the only 50-truck Semi order tied to Chicago, ties Tesla's 50 to it.

In a summer testing program HMD operated a Semi for over 4,000 miles, averaging 1.74 kWh per mile, Drive Tesla reports, and the carrier plans to use its first deliveries primarily for local operations around Chicago. That is close to Tesla's own claim: its Q3 2026 update says the top variant can go 500 miles at a full 82,000 lbs gross combination weight at 1.7 kWh/mile.

Fifty trucks is a small number next to the factory. Tesla has said the Nevada plant is built for 50,000 trucks a year, Electrek notes, the figure it gave at the September launch; the Q3 update lists the line at 25,000 a year of installed capacity, status "Production." One 50-truck batch is 0.2% of a year at the lower figure, by our arithmetic. The trucks stay out of Tesla's quarterly counts, whose production and delivery numbers "represent passenger vehicles sold to customers."