As previously reported in Truck eNews Swedish start-up Volta Trucks has unveiled its Volta Zero, a 16 tonne rigid electric truck confirming plans to start production in 2022 in the UK.
Following the success of electric car companies like Tesla in popularising electric cars , truck makers such as Volvo, Daimler and Scania are focussing in on electric trucks along with startups like Rivian and Nikola.
Volta will start trials of its new truck next year with parcel delivery companies including DPDgroup in the UK and other firms in Europe. Volta says it hopes to put 500 vehicles on the road by 2022, CEO Rob Fowler said.
“We are also well progressed with another seven or eight customers,” he added.
Volta said its trucks would feature advanced driver assistance systems, 90 per cent fewer mechanical parts than traditional internal combustion engine vehicles and offer a range of 150 to 200 kms on a single charge. Top speed is 100kp/h, and has a payload capacity of nearly 8.6 tonnes, The company also plans to offer refrigerated variants that are cooled by battery power, rather than an auxiliary diesel-powered cooler.
The company said the first Volta vehicle was manufactured by Prodrive in Warwick, central England, and it was in talks with a small number of suppliers for contract manufacturing of its trucks.
It declined to give details about its current funding. Fowler said the company was interested in raising funds to fuel the capital-intensive business.
“We acknowledge there are challenges in this space, but we’re confident that we’ve got the right people around which allows us to go out and raise money when we need to in the future,” he said.
