Volvo Group says it has created a special “business area” to deliver its clients battery life-cycle options including disposal and repurposing, as well as develop charging infrastructure.
“Volvo Energy will be a business area with full profit and loss responsibility,” according to a Volvo statement. “It will have both an internal role, providing batteries and charging solutions to the Volvo Group’s other business areas and an external role, offering used, remanufactured and refurbished batteries to customers for use across different applications.”
Volvo Energy will also carry the group’s responsibility for hydrogen infrastructure solutions for fuel cell electric vehicles and be collaborations with other companies to do so.
“There is a great and growing interest for electric vehicles and machines among our customers,” said Martin Lundstedt, chief executive of Volvo Group.
“Our ambition is to offer our customers the most competitive solutions when it comes to electrification, including batteries and charging infrastructure. With Volvo Energy, we are taking a holistic view of the entire life-cycle, which benefits both our customers’ business and society as a whole.”
The company said that it will increase the pace of its roll out of electric vehicles and related services which will include the introduction of heavy-duty trucks for regional transport or construction later this year.
Joachim Rosenberg, until recently the chairman of Volvo Group’s UD Trucks operation, will head Volvo Energy from this month. He will continue to run UD Trucks as they prepare the transfer of ownership to Isuzu Motors.
UD will be transferred to Isuzu Motors following the inking of a partnership agreement in December 2019 between Volvo and Isuzu. Intended cooperation will be in the areas of autonomous driving, connectivity and medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicles.
Meanwhile, Norwegian contractors K. Baugerød Anlegg and Veidekke recently received their Volvo ECR25 electric compact excavator and Volvo L25 electric compact wheel loader from Volvo Construction Equipment. The companies were the first to place orders for the machines and did so at bauma 2019 in Munich, Germany.