Switzerland's Ammann has turned one of its mainstream diesel asphalt pavers into an electric machine, the eABG 4820, using a Volvo Penta powertrain, InsideEVs reported. The company says it is now one of the largest electric pavers on the market, able to lay up to 500 tonnes of asphalt an hour and as much as 1,200 tonnes a day with a charging stop. Without a mid-shift charge, the machine can put down 350 to 450 tonnes.
A 99-kilowatt electric motor is fed by a 270 kWh battery pack arranged in three units. Volvo Penta supplies the batteries, motors, power electronics, and control technology; Ammann applied its experience with hydraulic machinery to put the system together. "It comes down to energy management and architecture," Philipp Bramer, head of the e-paver development team at Ammann, told InsideEVs. "The electric driveline doesn't just power the machine. It communicates seamlessly with the hydraulics. Simultaneously, the intelligent control system makes sure that the system supplies exactly the right amount of energy to the machine."
The traction batteries are nickel-cobalt-aluminum oxide, or NCA, cells. InsideEVs said they can be charged in a way that covers most paving scenarios, especially on job sites that are sensitive to emissions and noise. Lower noise is the most immediate advantage over a diesel paver. The report also said an electric paver can emit up to 70 percent less carbon dioxide, and that an electric drivetrain has fewer moving parts, which removes some routine maintenance. The tradeoff is that contractors need charging at the depot and a way to top up machines on the job site.
Construction equipment is following a path already visible in trucks, excavators, and cranes: electrify the machines that spend all day in populated, already noisy, already polluted places. The eABG 4820 is a production-intent example with published hourly and daily output figures, not a concept sketch. Those figures depend on a charging stop to hit the 1,200-tonne daily mark. Without that stop, Ammann's own range is 350 to 450 tonnes a day, which is the number to remember if a site cannot recharge at midday.
Ammann is known for asphalt and concrete plant equipment; this is an electrified version of a machine contractors already understand, not a new category of robot. Volvo Penta's role is the electric kit: batteries, motor, power electronics, and controls. The 99 kW motor and 270 kWh pack, split across three battery units, are the hardware behind the hourly and daily output claims. The 1,200-tonne day includes a charging stop; the 350-to-450-tonne day does not. That distinction is built into Ammann's own figures and is the fairest way to read the headline capacity.