Growing customer interest in electric vehicles

We at the Volvo Group are now widening our range of electric vehicles and interest is growing from our customers in both Europe and North America. This is good news for our shared responsibility for tackling climate change.

Electric vehicles have an important role to play in reducing CO2 emissions from the transport industry. While we are still at the very beginning of this journey, developments are gaining momentum as battery performance improves.

Volvo Group is well positioned to address these changes. We build on experience gained from more than ten years of selling hybrid and electric buses as we now commence sales of electric trucks and construction equipment. This development is receiving the full support of our customers and public authorities.

The latest example comes from California in the form of the huge LIGHTS project. The California Air Resources Board has awarded USD 44.8 million to the South Coast Air Quality Management District to accelerate the adoption of clean freight technologies and reduce air pollution caused by the movement of goods. Volvo Group is to invest USD 37 million in the project.

Much less noise and with zero tailpipe emissions

We will be leading the project, and together with 15 partners will demonstrate the ability of heavy-duty battery electric trucks and equipment to reliably move freight between two major ports and inland warehouses – with much less noise, and with zero emissions.

The first five Volvo VNR Electric are now in Los Angeles and will be tested and further developed in real traffic situations in Southern California. Sales are scheduled to start to other customers at the end of this year.

Just a few weeks ago, Mack Trucks delivered their first electric truck: the Mack LR refuse truck. This vehicle is now running in a pilot with the New York City Department of Sanitation in Brooklyn.

Order from Carlsberg Group on 20 electric Renault trucks

In Europe, both Volvo Trucks and Renault Trucks have started selling fully electric versions of Volvo FL, Volvo FE, Renault Trucks D and D Wide with production set to begin already in a few weeks’ time. Renault Trucks recently secured an important order for 20 of the electric D Wide Z.E model to the Carlsberg Group, which will make daily deliveries from the brewer’s 15 logistics sites in Switzerland.

Over the past year, Volvo Construction Equipment has run successful pilots with customers in different parts of Europe with its fully electric compact excavators and wheel loaders. The order book will open and sales will begin in just two weeks’ time.

Our focus must constantly remain on sustainability as we move toward a world in which eight billion people, digitally connected like never before, will put unprecedented demands on the world’s transportation infrastructure, logistics systems, and technology.

We will need a range of different solutions to cope with this. One of the most important will be the rapid development of electric vehicles, and we in the Volvo Group are already well on our way.