Volvo Trucks ready to electrify a large part of goods transports in Europe

This is being driven by their own ambitious climate goals, as well as consumers’ demand for de-carbonisation and cleaner transports.
“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,” said Roger Alm, president of Volvo Trucks.

No electric models are available in South Africa yet, and are currently only available for sale in European markets.

Volvo Trucks South Africa is, however, currently testing two LNG (liquified natural gas) models locally and will explore the feasibility of electric trucks for the local market going forward.

Adding three more heavy duty trucks to the electric line-up

With the sales start of the new electric Volvo FH and Volvo FM models, electrified transport is now possible, not only for urban areas but also for regional traffic between cities. In addition, the new electric Volvo FMX model is creating new ways to make construction transport operations both quieter and cleaner.

With the addition of the new products with higher load capacities, more powerful drivelines and range of up to 300km, Volvo Trucks’ electric portfolio could cover around 45% of all goods transported in Europe today.

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,” said 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 extra heavy trucks we are now launching mark a giant step towards reaching this target.”

Hydrogen fuel cell electric trucks coming next.

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,” Alm stated.
“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.”

Source: MotorPress