Volvo Trucks plans further EV launches

Volvo Trucks unveils plans to launch three all-electric models next year and produce hydrogen fuel cell trucks by mid-decade. The company targets 50% electric sales in Europe by 2030.

The Swedish truck maker, the world’s second-largest, which currently sells only a small number of battery-powered vehicles, plans to start production of the three new heavy-duty electric trucks designed for intercity regional transport and urban construction.

“More and more transport companies are realising they need to start their electrification journey right now, both with the environment in mind and for competitive reasons to satisfy customer requirements for sustainable shipping. With our wide and deep offering, it is totally feasible for far more transport companies to go electric,” says Roger Alm, President of Volvo Trucks.

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Production of the new electric models for Europe will start in the second half of 2022. They join the Volvo FL Electric and Volvo FE Electric for urban transports that have been in serial production since 2019 for the same market. In North America, sales of the Volvo VNR Electric started in December 2020. With the sales start of the new truck models, Volvo Trucks now has a line-up of six medium and heavy-duty electric trucks, which makes it the most complete commercial electric truck range in the industry.

With the addition of the new products with higher load capacities, more powerful drivelines and range of up to 300 km, Volvo Trucks’ electric portfolio could cover around 45% of all goods transported in Europe today, claims the company. This makes it possible to make an important contribution to lower the climate impact from road freights, which according to official statistics account for about 6% of total CO2 emissions in the EU.

“There is huge potential to electrify truck transports in Europe, and also in other parts of the world, in the very near future,” says Roger Alm. “To prove this, we have set the ambitious goal to have electric trucks account for half of our sales in Europe by 2030. And these three new heavy-duty trucks we are now launching mark a giant step towards reaching this target.”

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Looking further ahead, even long-distance heavy transports will be able to be done with electric vehicles. To meet the challenging demands for both high load capacity and a much longer range, Volvo Trucks plans to use hydrogen fuel cells to generate electricity.

“This technology is developing rapidly and our ambition is also to make the long driving distances electrified, using both batteries and fuel cells,” Roger Alm states. “Our aim is to start selling fuel-cell electric trucks in the second part of this decade and we are confident we can make this happen.”

Car manufacturers have recently increased investments in electric technology as countries unveil ambitious climate goals. Heavy-duty transport has historically presented a major technical challenge, but some believe that the moment when electric freight vehicles would be able to compete commercially with diesel vehicles is not so far ahead.

Although hydrogen hasn’t yet taken off in the automotive industry, most manufacturers understand the potential that hydrogen fuel can have in the heavy-duty transport industry to make commercial vehicles greener.

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