2023_11_Sustainable Truck&Van

INNOVATIONS
VOLVO TRUCKS
CHALLENGE
ACCEPTED
GOLDEN HERITAGE
The Volvo FH electric truck pictured
above is the heir of a model that
celebrates this year its 30 th anniversary.
Almost 1.5 million Volvo FH units have
been sold in the last thirty years in over
80 countries all over the world. Engine,
aerodynamics, driver comfort were only
some of its breakthroughs.
Volvo Trucks continues its journey toward electrification: new
batteries with increased capacity for the mid-range (Volvo FL and
FE Electric) are about to be launched. And to meet increasing
demand of zero-emission vehicles, the Belgian factory in Ghent
has been equipped for e-truck production.
Volvo Trucks, the only European name
in the 2022 electric truck sales top ten
– which is basically monopolized by
Chinese brands – confirms its vocation to play
ahead in the field of zero-emission vehicles.
And if the vehicles – whether medium or
heavy-duty – are for all intents and purposes
available on the market, now the challenge
shifts to other elements: first and foremost, the
vehicle’s range. Starting with the Volvo FL and
FE Electric for distribution, the Swedish company
(the only traditional manufacturer that did
not attend Solutrans 2023) promises to revolutionize
the concept of range, relegating the
infamous recharging issue to the past.
How? By working on the battery composition
to increase their capacity and reach the
threshold of 450 kilometers in the case of the
Volvo FL Electric and 275 kilometers in the
case of the FE Electric. On closer inspection,
these ranges are more than enough to allow
truck users to be comfortable on their city or
suburban trips. “With a range of up to 450 km,
our electric trucks are ready to replace our customers’
fleet of urban diesel trucks”, said Jessica
Sandström, SVP Product Management at
Volvo Trucks. “The Volvo FL and FE Electric
produce minimal emissions and noise, benefiting
the environment, the driver and everyone
who lives and moves around the city”.
A further boost to e-truck sales
In the concept promoted by Volvo Trucks, having
batteries with larger capacity allows fewer
battery packs to be installed on the trucks, benefiting
the vehicle’s payload, which is a crucial
issue for those approaching electric mobility
in freight transport. Volvo’s electric trucks that
have been ‘upgraded’ with this new concept
can be ordered immediately: the first deliveries
are expected in 2024.
The new development discussed here is expected
to further boost sales of Volvo electric
trucks. For this, another plant in Europe has
recently been enabled to manufacture electric
trucks. The plant is in Ghent, Belgium, and
it is intended for the production of the heavy
Volvo FH, Volvo FM and Volvo FMX Electric
with total ground mass up to 44 tons. The Ghent
plant is Volvo Trucks’ largest production
site with an annual capacity of about 45,000
trucks. Electric vehicles are assembled on the
same platform and line as diesel and gas vehicles.
The battery packs come from the recently
inaugurated battery assembly plant in Ghent,
which is located right next to the production
line. The plant in Belgium is the fourth Volvo
Trucks factory to produce battery electric vehicles
after Blainville-sur-Orne, France; New
River Valley in the U.S. for mass production of
the VNR Electric; and Tuve, Sweden.
Electric targets.
Since Volvo Trucks
started serial
production of allelectric
trucks in
2019, the company
has taken orders
for around 6,000
electric trucks in 42
countries around
the world. Volvo
Trucks has set
the target that by
2030, half of the
trucks sold by the
company will be
electric.
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