The Ladder Truck That Plugs In: Rosenbauer's All-Electric L32A-XS

In Germany, an aerial can only set up where the ground is rated to carry it. Fire department access and set-up areas are laid out under a national standard from the German Institute for Standardization (DIN), DIN 14090, and they come with weight limits. Battery packs are heavy, and until this year no electric aerial came in under those limits.

The L32A-XS electric from Rosenbauer and MAN Truck & Bus is, by the two companies' account, the first. It weighs less than 16 tonnes (about 35,000 lb) with a rear axle load under 10 tonnes (about 22,000 lb). The first unit was handed over on June 1 at Interschutz 2026 in Hanover to the North Rhine-Westphalia Fire Department Institute (IdF NRW), which MAN describes as Germany's largest fire service training and education center.

"We manufacture what is currently the world's lightest aerial ladder vehicle on a battery-powered electric chassis," said Andreas Zeller, Rosenbauer's chief sales officer.

A 32-meter ladder on a midsize truck

The aerial body is Rosenbauer's L32A-XS, a 32-meter (about 105-foot) working-height ladder with an articulating tip, mounted on MAN's new eTGM, a battery-electric version of its midsize truck. It meets the European Norm (EN) for automatic aerial ladders, EN 14043, in class 23/12. In practice the ladder can rescue people from 23 meters (about 75 feet) up at a horizontal reach of 12 meters (about 39 feet).

The basket is rated for 500 kg, or five people. Its front opens fully, so a person in a wheelchair can be moved safely, and the basket stretcher can ride on the basket floor. There is a built-in waterway with a monitor that clips on.

XS refers to a cutout built into the ladder set, which keeps the radius of action very narrow. The whole set can swing 180 degrees in tight spaces, and a tilting basket arm helps when crews have to reach windows or work over obstacles. On the 30-meter class, the minimum distance from the basket to the center of the turntable is 6.40 meters (about 21 feet), and in front of the cab the basket can come within 2.20 meters (about 7 feet) of the chassis, according to Rosenbauer's product page.

Range and charging

A 210-kilowatt (kW) motor drives the truck, and two packs give 178 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of gross battery capacity.

A 5 to 80 percent fast charge takes about 33 minutes. The motor and two-speed gearbox sit in the middle of the frame, and a mechanical power take-off (PTO) runs the ladder off the same battery that drives the truck. Rosenbauer says the packs hold enough energy to carry out a typical aerial operation without interruption.

For most American departments the rural figure matters more than the urban one. Four runs of 12 miles per charge would cover a quiet shift for a lot of ladder companies, though a busy day or a long working fire would use it up faster.

Built for a training ground first

Dense city districts, airports, plant fire brigades and training grounds are the uses Rosenbauer names, along with work indoors. The first buyer is a training institute. The IdF NRW had already bought an electric rescue engine from Rosenbauer and says it wants as much hands-on experience with battery apparatus as it can get.

"This is another milestone on the path towards fully electric firefighting services," said Marcel Völkert of the institute.

Völkert also points out that a ladder under 16 tonnes can go into regular service without extra approvals or special inspections.

The rest of the package is familiar Rosenbauer aerial equipment: six roll-up compartments, LED lighting from the outriggers to the basket, horizontal-vertical outriggers and load measurement in three dimensions. The product page lists three control stations and up to 2,000 liters (about 530 gallons) per minute of water flow at full height.

On this side of the Atlantic

This is a European truck built to European weight rules and a European ladder standard. It still shows that a midsize ladder can carry a full battery and stay under a hard weight limit, which is the first question any department with weight-restricted set-up spots will ask about an electric aerial. A department writing specs for one should ask any builder for usable battery capacity, the number of rural-length runs per charge and the fast-charge time.