Electric commercial vehicle startup Volta Trucks has announced a more aggressive Road-to-Zero Emissions strategy in response to customer demand at a time of increasing societal focus on climate change and air-quality improvements, with many cities implementing low- or zero-emissions zones. Highlights include an increased sales targets from 5000 to more than 27,000 vehicles by 2025, a product range expanded from one to four vehicles by 2025, plans to expand initial from launch markets across Europe to enter North American and Asian markets, and the consideration of North American manufacturing.
“We have significant tailwinds with zero-emission large commercial vehicles, thanks to forthcoming legislation changes that are driving demand, as well as many customers with uncompromising sustainability agendas wanting to purchase the most environmentally focused vehicles for their fleets,” said Chief Executive Officer of Volta Trucks, Essa Al-Saleh, in announcing the company’s ambitious Road-to-Zero Emissions strategy. “When we launched the Volta Zero, we’d expected to be selling 5000 vehicles a year with a single model by 2025.”
Volta Trucks says its Zero is the world’s first purpose-built full-electric 16-t (17.6-ton) truck designed for inner-city logistics, reducing the environmental impact of freight deliveries in city centers. It is designed from the ground up with an operating range of 150-200 km (95-125 mi). Driven by customer demand, the company sees the opportunity to expand the single model into a portfolio of vehicles to offer customers a wider selection of full-electric vehicle sizes.
“This leads us to far more ambitious sales expectations, with more than five times the number of vehicles now expected to be built compared to our original proposal,” added Al-Saleh. “That’ll see over 27,000 vehicles sold per year by 2025, and further volume growth afterward.”
The founders created the company to decarbonize logistics operations and to make city centers safer and more sustainable places to live and work in.
“We originally believed that we couldn’t achieve this objective by ourselves, and we strongly encouraged other manufacturers on their journeys towards zero emissions,” said Carl-Magnus Norden, Founder and Executive Chairman, Volta Trucks. “Over the past months though, we’ve seen unprecedented demand in the marketplace, confirming that our ambition resonates well with our customers. But we’ve also seen very few other startups or OEMs announcing new fully electric commercial vehicles in the medium and lower heavy-duty sectors.”
So, the company decided to deliver more of the logistics-industry decarbonization itself.
“The launch of four separate fully electric commercial vehicles targeting more than 27,000 truck sales per year by 2025, just three years after starting production, is a very strong statement of intent to deliver on our original vision,” added Norden.
Volta Trucks’ own independent research suggests that the total global addressable market for full-electric trucks in the 7.5 to 19 t (8.3 to 20.9 ton) category will exceed $100 billion by the end of 2025. With speed to market at the heart of the strategy, Volta Trucks will offer a wide range of full-electric commercial vehicles at a time of scarce supply of comparable full electric vehicles from new startups and the established vehicle manufacturers.
Building upon the Zero, the company plans to expand its product portfolio with three variants within the medium-duty to lower end of the heavy-duty class. Specifically, there will be Zero models in the 7.5-t, 12-t (13.2-ton), 16-t, and 19-t weight categories for the logistics industry.
The 16-t Zero will be delivered first, with pilot fleet trucks built by the end of 2021 and series production starting around 12 months afterward. This vehicle is currently in the engineering development phase, with early prototype testing due to start shortly.
Production of the 16-t trunk will be closely followed by the largest 19-t and mid-size 12-t variants in 2023. A pilot fleet of the smaller 7.5-t vehicles is expected for customer trials in the same year, with production commencing in late 2024. These later vehicles are currently in the early design development phase.
All Zero trucks will adopt the low central driving position with a glasshouse-style cab offering 220-degree visibility to maximize visual communication between the driver and vulnerable road users. They will be designed with optimized payloads, giving fleet managers the opportunity to use a reduced number of larger Zero vehicles to replace several smaller vans in their operations—having a positive effect on inner-city traffic congestion.
The company says that demand for the 16-t Zero has extended beyond the initial London and Paris launch markets, with the order book swelling to $260 million by January 2021 and continuing to grow. Given the strength of market demand, Volta Trucks will accelerate its market entry, with a Europe-first strategy followed by U.S. and Asian cities.
The Zero was initially launched in the UK and France, and it is currently in Spain for a customer roadshow. Afterward, it will be presented in Germany and North America over the summer, with other European markets including Netherlands, Italy, and Belgium to be confirmed by year-end. Volta Trucks expects to introduce all its four variants across all its core markets.
Sustainability is also a driver in the company adopting a network manufacturing strategy, with a number of assembly facilities distributed across its key geographies to minimize unnecessary transportation and cost. The company has “expressed an interest” in manufacturing vehicles at the Decarbonisation Hub project in the former Nissan manufacturing facilities in Barcelona. Vehicles manufactured in Spain could potentially serve southern European markets. The company is considering additional manufacturing locations across Europe, North America, and Asia to meet the significant volume ramp-up envisaged by the plan.
Demand has also been accelerated by Volta Trucks’ unique TaaS (Truck as a Service) proposition that aims to revolutionize the financing and servicing for commercial vehicle fleets. TaaS will offer fleet managers an easy way to electrify their fleets, with a single, affordable, monthly fee providing access to the Zero and all of its servicing, maintenance, insurance, and training requirements. The plan will even provide a replacement Zero when needed to maximize uptime and operational efficiency.
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