Volvo Trucks will deliver fully electric heavy-duty trucks to Amazon in Germany by year end. The 20 Volvo FH Electric are expected to drive more than one million road kilometres annually, fuelled with electricity instead of diesel.
“Heavy goods vehicles and other commercial vehicles make up around 36% of Germany’s domestic transport emissions*”, which makes road transport decarbonization an important issue to address.
“Big actors in the transport business play a key role in leading the industry’s efforts to lower its carbon footprint. Therefore I’m glad that Amazon is working with us to help reduce their emissions in longer and heavier transport assignments,” says Jessica Sandström, Senior Vice President of Product Management at Volvo Trucks.
Volvo Trucks started the series production of heavy-duty electric trucks in September this year and the availability of electric trucks for inter-city and regional haulage marks an important milestone for decarbonizing road transport.
“Globally we now have six electric truck models ready to order and in series production to meet the increasing demand for decarbonizing goods transports. This is an encouraging step forward for reducing climate change impacts,” comments Jessica Sandström.
The electric versions of its most important product range – the heavy-duty Volvo FH, Volvo FM and Volvo FMX trucks – will play a vital role in reaching Volvo Trucks global target that in 2030 50% of all new trucks sold will be battery or fuel cell electric. These electric heavy-duty trucks can operate at a total weight of 44 tonnes and the three models mentioned represent around two thirds of the company’s sales.
For Amazon, the trucks will replace their diesel counterparts and play a key role in electrification initiatives through its transportation chain.
“Amazon is committed to decarbonizing its fleet, and the middle mile has been a notoriously hard-to-abate sector,” explains Andreas Marschner, Vice President Transportation Services Europe at Amazon. “That’s why welcoming these electric heavy goods vehicles from Volvo into our fleet is such a critical milestone. We’re operating one of the fastest-growing commercial transportation electrification programs, and we’ll continue to invest and innovate to decarbonize and deliver packages to customers with zero emissions.”
Facts about the Volvo FH Electric
- Battery capacity: 540 kWh
- Output power: 490 kW continuous power
- The range is up to 300 km, but the Volvo FH Electric can cover up to 500 km during a normal workday if a top-up charge is added, for example during the lunch break.
Facts about Volvo’s range of electric trucks
- Volvo Trucks have a global range of six all electric trucks designed to cover many different transport assignments.
- The Volvo FH, FM and FMX Electric models have a GCW of up to 44 tonnes. Sales are ongoing in Europe and series production started in September 2022.
- Manufacturing of the Volvo FL and FE Electric, for city distribution and refuse handling, started in Europe already in 2019.
- Production of the Volvo VNR Electric for North America began in 2020.
*Bundesministerium für Umwelt und Verkehr, Klimaschutz in Zahlen – Fakten, Trends und Impulse deutscher Klimapolitik, Ausgabe 2021 (bmuv.de), Page 36