- The world’s first purpose-built full-electric 16-tonne truck, designed for city centre distribution.
- Optimised for the safety of vulnerable urban road users, including 220-degrees of visibility, and designed to deliver a Transport for London five-star Direct Vision Standard rating.
- Truck as a Service gives fleet managers a frictionless way to electrify their vehicles with a single, affordable, monthly fee that covers all charging, financing, servicing, maintenance, insurance and training requirements, maximising uptime, and delivering a lower Total Cost of Ownership.
- Volta Zero to be manufactured by Steyr Automotive in Austria, with more than 100 years of truck manufacturing experience.
- First 25 Volta Zero ‘Design Verification’ prototype vehicles are now built and being evaluated by engineers and customers through to late 2022.
- ‘Production Verification’ prototypes currently starting build in Steyr, ready for customer evaluations at the end of 2022, ahead of start of production in early 2023.
- Volta Trucks previously announced two of Europe’s largest pre-orders of full-electric trucks, with DB Schenker’s pre-order of 1,470 vehicles, and Petit Forestier’s pre-order of 1,000 Volta Zeros.
- Volta Trucks has a total order bank of over 6,500 vehicles, with an order bank value of circa €1.4 billion.
- Volta Trucks was founded in 2019, and now employs over 450 people, with a recruit joining every 22 hours. To date, the company has raised nearly €290 million.
Volta Trucks, the leading and disruptive full-electric commercial vehicle manufacturer and services provider, launched the Volta Zero in September 2020 – its first vehicle and the world’s first purpose-built full-electric 16-tonne commercial vehicle designed specifically for inner-city freight distribution.
“Commercial vehicles form the lifeblood of commerce and livelihoods in cities, but today’s large trucks dangerously impose themselves on our streets and dominate their surroundings. When we launched the Volta Zero, we aimed to revolutionise road transport. Volta Trucks is redefining the perception of the large commercial vehicle, and how it operates in and integrates with our sustainable towns and cities. This is made possible by three things – safety, sustainability, and our unique Truck as a Service proposition that reimagines a fleet manager’s business model. At Volta Trucks, we are directly contributing to society’s migration towards an electrified future.”
Carl-Magnus Norden, Founder of Volta Trucks.
Designed from a blank sheet of paper to be the safest commercial vehicle.
“When we created Volta Trucks, we put safety at its heart for one simple reason. In London, as an example, 26% of pedestrian fatalities and 78% of cyclist deaths involve a truck, yet trucks only account for 4% of road miles. This is clearly unacceptable and must change. With the Volta Zero, we’ve completely reimagined the commercial vehicle, ensuring it can operate safely with all vulnerable road users including pedestrians and cyclists, and integrate safely into their city environment”.
Carl-Magnus Norden, Founder of Volta Trucks.
The design concepts for the Volta Zero were created by boutique design consultancy, Astheimer of Warwick, UK. The removal of the traditional internal combustion engine enabled the designers and engineers of the Volta Zero to completely rethink how a truck had always been designed. The driver of a Volta Zero has a wide 220-degree field of direct visibility around the vehicle. This panoramic view of the surroundings through a glasshouse-style cab is designed to deliver on Transport for London’s five-star Direct Vision Standard rating for optimum visibility and the reduction of blind spots. The protection of vulnerable road users is also enhanced by side-view cameras that replace traditional mirrors, a 360-degree birds-eye camera showing the driver their complete surroundings, and blind-spot warning systems that detect objects down the sides of the vehicle.
The driver of a Volta Zero sits far lower than in a conventional truck, with their eye-line at around 1.8 meters. This mirrors the height of pedestrians and other road users for easy visual communication between the driver and others around.
Safety and comfort for the driver have been optimized by minimising cognitive overload. The design of the cabin is contemporary, spacious, and light, with intuitive user interfaces. The central display conveys critical information, while touch screens on each side are used for lights, climate control, navigation and trip planning, communication, and in-cab media. With the Volta Zero, Volta Trucks is changing the experience and workspace for drivers, offering them an environment more akin to a premium car than the traditional commercial vehicle, and therefore helping to address the driver shortage that exists in today’s society.
To aid ingress and egress, the removal of the internal combustion means the driver sits in a central driving position. They have easy access through fast opening sliding doors on each side of the cabin to enter or exit either side of the vehicle, and always onto the pavement or sidewalk. Thanks to the low seating position, the driver simply steps in and out of the cab, rather than climbing up and down from a traditional cab, which is known to create health and safety issues – another positive contribution to driver recruitment and retention.
“By removing the traditional internal combustion engine that has always sat high in the front of a truck, we had a clean sheet of paper to design the commercial vehicle suitable for the 21st century, rethinking the layout and design of the truck and its cab. We had three main priorities for the design of the cab. We wanted it to be best-in-class for safety, ease and efficiency of ingress and egress, and the best driver environment of any truck on the market. With the Volta Zero, I can comfortably say that we have achieved that goal.”
Carsten Astheimer, Managing Director of Astheimer Design.
Sustainability – more than just tailpipe emissions
“Sustainability is at the very core of our business. Saving the planet cannot wait, it must happen now, and Volta Trucks wants to spearhead the rapid change in large commercial vehicles, from outdated diesel to clean and safe technology solutions”.
Carl-Magnus Norden, Founder of Volta Trucks.
As a full-electric brand, sustainability is at Volta Trucks’ core and the company strongly believes in the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations. Together with its customers, Volta Trucks will work towards improving health and well-being, creating sustainable cities and taking climate action according to the United Nations goals.
Volta Trucks is developing the capacity to continually reduce the overall impact of its vehicles and the components they are built from, through to the supply chain and manufacturing footprint. The company is undertaking Life-Cycle Analysis to identify development opportunities for future variants of the Volta Zero and will use this data to minimise the environmental impact over the vehicle’s lifespan, from design to manufacturing to end-of-life recycling.
Volta Trucks is committed to becoming a circular business, enhancing resource efficiency, and eliminating landfill over the Volta Zero’s lifecycle. Traditionally, this responsibility is placed on the customer, but the Truck as a Service model places all repair and recycling responsibility on the company.
Its Supplier Sustainability Assurance Process is designed to ensure that Volta Trucks works with suppliers who share common goals, enhancing health and safety, working conditions, environmental standards, and human rights across the supply chain. Transparency is also key. The company works to know where all critical raw materials are sourced, so it can ensure the highest ethical standards are upheld in the procurement process.
“By 2025, we aim to have saved around 1.2 million tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere – the equivalent annual CO2 usage of 180,000 houses – and improved inner-city air quality by emitting zero tailpipe emissions. But for Volta Trucks, sustainability is much more than just tailpipe emissions. We take an environmental-first approach to all material sourcing and will continue to strain every sinew to ensure we deliver on our mission of becoming the world’s most sustainable commercial vehicle manufacturer.”
Carl-Magnus Norden, Founder of Volta Trucks.
Built for purpose – built for electric.
“From the outset of the development of the Volta Zero, we understood the positive benefits that vehicle electrification would bring to society, and specifically the inhabitants of city centres where air quality is frequently at its worst. For Volta Trucks, electrification is the means to the end – this being the end of the internal combustion engine. The end of CO2 being emitted into our atmosphere and the end of harmful pollutants affecting the health of todays, and the future, generation.”
Ian Collins, Chief Product Officer of Volta Trucks.
With its deep knowledge of the logistics industry, Volta Trucks understands that the real-world operating range of an electric commercial vehicle is a make-or-break decision in its effectiveness on an operator’s fleet. The Volta Zero will offer a pure-electric range of 150 – 200 kms (95 – 125 miles). Through engagement with customers, this is more than sufficient for the daily use of an urban delivery vehicle.
Innovation in electric motors.
Volta Trucks will be the first full-electric medium duty commercial vehicle manufacturer in Europe to use an innovative ePowertrain to drive the rear wheels, rather than the conventional electric motor and driveshaft set up. The single electric motor, transmission, and axle unit of the Volta Zero is supplied by Meritor of the US and is contained in a lightweight and compact unit that is lighter and more efficient, delivering an increased range as a result. It also provides packaging benefits by freeing up space between the chassis rails. This is where Volta Trucks fits the high voltage battery of the vehicle – its safest possible location.
Safe and sustainable battery technology.
The Volta Zero will use 150 – 225 kWh of battery power, using two or three 75 kWh battery packs from Proterra of North America. The Proterra-supplied batteries will give the Volta Zero a real-world range of up to 200kms on a single charge with the long-range triple pack option. This distance is more than enough for most inner-city logistics and distribution vehicles which spend most of their operating time in slow-moving start / stop traffic. The Proterra battery pack delivers industry-leading energy density and a customizable design. This allows the battery in the Volta Zero to be located between the chassis rails.
Proterra’s battery technology has been proven over 17 million miles driven by its own transit vehicles and has also been chosen by other world-class commercial vehicle manufacturers to electrify delivery vans, school buses, coaches, low-floor shuttles, and construction equipment.
Proterra batteries feature passive and active safety features, liquid thermal conditioning, and adheres to state-of-the-art functional safety standards, including ISO 26262 (up to ASIL C). The Proterra battery is designed to deliver over 4,000 recharge cycles over 10 years, without significant degradation, to ensure the longevity of the vehicle.
“Our engineers have worked with Proterra and other world-leading partners and suppliers to deliver the best possible product to fleet managers who are focussed on the electrification of their operations. The Volta Zero’s range of up to 200 kms / 125 miles will be sufficient for all urban logistics requirements. With Volta Trucks’ ambition to be the world leader in safety and sustainability, we’ve created a brand-new design concept, capturing the opportunities coming from being the world’s first purpose-built full-electric commercial vehicle.”
Ian Collins, Chief Product Officer of Volta Trucks.
Volta Zero – the truck in detail
The Volta Zero has been designed to optimise its load-carrying capacity, thus minimising the number of vehicles on an operator’s fleet, and the consequent congestion on city streets. The principle is that, thanks to its overall design, the Volta Zero can operate in narrow city streets and undertake the role that three or four 3.5-tonne vehicles would ordinarily do.
The full-electric 16-tonne Volta Zero offers a payload of 8,000kgs, with an overall volume of 37.7m3 , designed to accommodate 16 Euro pallets. A refrigerated cargo box option is also available, without reducing overall cargo box volume. A supply agreement with Carrier Transicold will integrate engineless ‘Iceland’ all-electric refrigeration systems and PowerBox technology into the refrigerated Volta Zero, thus further reducing CO2 or particulate emissions versus a normal engine-powered commercial vehicle chiller.
The ambient temperature cargo box for the Volta Zero will be supplied by Paneltex from the UK, and assembled on the production line in Steyr, Austria. For refrigerated vehicles, those destined for the UK will have their cargo box supplied and fitted at Paneltex in Hull whereas vehicles destined for mainland Europe will have their cargo boxes supplied and fitted by Le Capitaine in Normandy, France.
The Volta Zero is 9,460mm in length, 3,470mm high and 2,550mm wide, with a wheelbase of 4,800mm. Its Gross Vehicle Weight is 16,000kgs and the vehicle is limited to a top speed of 90km/h (56mph).
A range of full electric trucks beyond 16- and 18-tonnes
Volta Trucks has confirmed it is also designing and engineering 7.5- and 12-tonne Volta Zero variants – the second product family in its full-electric vehicle range.
The 7.5- and 12-tonne Volta Zeros have also been designed by Volta Trucks’ partner, Astheimer Design in Warwick, UK, alongside Volta Trucks’ own engineering teams. The new full-electric vehicles will bear a close but evolutionary visual relationship to the larger 16-tonne vehicle. The 7.5-and 12-tonne models carry over the principles of the innovative cab and premium working environment for drivers. The new variants will be visually identical at the front, with the 12-tonne vehicle having a longer chassis and body, and a second set of rear wheels and tyres, to accommodate the increased vehicle payload.
The ground-up development of the 7.5- and 12-tonne vehicles is being delivered at the same industry-leading pace as other vehicle developments. Having confirmed the start of the project in December 2021, a Pilot Fleet of vehicles is expected to be launched for customer trials in 2024, with series production due to commence in early 2025. The forthcoming 7.5- and 12-tonne vehicles will make a significant contribution to the company’s objective to sell over 27,000 vehicles per year by 2025 and increasing in the years beyond.
“The forthcoming 7.5- and 12-tonne models complete the full-electric Volta Zero product family. They’ll sit alongside our 16-tonne vehicle that’s currently in the final stages of testing, and the 18-tonne vehicle that will start production in mid-2023. Our customers tell us that they really appreciate the safety and zero tailpipe emission attributes of the 16-tonne Volta Zero, but also need smaller 7.5- and 12-tonne vehicles in their operations. Our engineering teams are now scaling rapidly to be able to deliver all four vehicles at pace, as our customers ask of us.”
Essa Al-Saleh, Chief Executive Officer of Volta Trucks.
Europe-first strategy, followed by North America.
The Volta Zero was launched in September 2020 and since its introduction, has been enthusiastically welcomed by fleet managers and city legislators alike, with market demand extending way beyond the initial London and Paris launch markets. Given the strength of market demand, Volta Trucks has accelerated its market entry, following a Europe-first strategy, followed by the US. The European roll out will see the 16-tonne Volta Zero available initially in London and Paris, followed in 2023 by Madrid, Milan, the Rhine-Ruhr area of Germany, and the Randstad region of the Netherlands.
In the US, Volta Trucks will initially introduce a Pilot Fleet of Class 7 trucks in mid-2023 that will be evaluated by US customers, starting in Los Angeles in mid-late 2023, with additional cities to follow, ahead of a roll out of production vehicles in 2024/25. The 33,000 lbs. Class 7 Volta Zero introduction will be closely followed by a Class 5 vehicle of 19,500lbs., and a Class 6 truck of 26,000lbs., equivalent to the European 7.5- and 12-ton vehicles, in 2024/2025.
Significant customer interest and commercial traction.
Since launch, Volta Trucks has seen significant customer traction, and to date, has over 50 customers who have pre-ordered vehicles. The company has a total pipeline of over 10,000 trucks, and a total pre-order bank of over 6,500 vehicles, with a pre-order bank value of circa €1.4 billion.
These pre-orders have represented the largest for full-electric trucks in Europe to date, and with some of Europe’s largest transport and fleet rental companies. In November 2021, Volta Trucks announced Europe’s largest pre-orders of full-electric trucks, with DB Schenker’s pre-order of 1,470 vehicles. This followed a previous-largest order of electric trucks in Europe with Petit Forestier’s pre-order of 1,000 Volta Zeros in December 2020.
Unique Truck as a Service offering for fleet managers
With the Volta Zero, Volta Trucks will introduce its innovative Truck as a Service proposition that will revolutionise the financing and servicing of commercial vehicle fleets. Truck as a Service offers fleet managers a frictionless and hassle-free way to electrify their fleet. These operators know they need to migrate to electric commercial vehicles but might be daunted by the prospect. Truck as a Service will help them with every step by offering a single, affordable, monthly fee that provides access to a full-electric Volta Zero, and all its charging infrastructure, servicing, maintenance, insurance, and training requirements. It will even provide a replacement Volta Zero when needed, maximising uptime and operational efficiency.
Due to its innovative electric powertrain, the Volta Zero has 90% less mechanical parts than an equivalent internal combustion engine vehicle. As a result, Volta Trucks will deliver a lower Total Cost of Ownership than an equivalent diesel-powered vehicle, providing a further incentive towards the migration to electric vehicles.
Service and Maintenance
Volta Trucks will build a network of its own Volta Trucks Hubs – the company’s service and maintenance facilities – that will deliver its Truck as a Service customer-focused operations.
The first Volta Trucks Hub in Paris has been confirmed and will operate eight workshop bays for the routine servicing of vehicles, including the new and innovative equipment needed to keep full-electric commercial vehicles well maintained. The Hub will also host admin offices, a Volta Trucks Academy training centre and a Call Centre that will provide the interface between customers and the company’s team of technical and commercial experts, 24/7/365.
The first Volta Trucks Hub, Paris is in Bonneuil-sur-Marne, to the south-east of Paris, and will serve the important logistics centres of Rungis, Orly, Créteil and Bonneuil where the first Volta Trucks customers already have distribution warehouses. The facility offers 2,100m2 on a 5,000m2 plot and will serve more than 600 trucks per year.
The first Volta Trucks Hub, Paris is part of a wider representation strategy that will see a vehicle service offering across all initial launch locations of Paris, London, Madrid, Milan, the Rhine-Ruhr region of Germany, and the Randstad region of the Netherlands. The first Hub in Paris will cover the south of the city, with an additional Hub covering the main logistics and distribution centres in the north of Paris to be confirmed soon, as will the location of the forthcoming London Hub.
“Uptime is critical for our customers, and the forthcoming opening of our Volta Trucks Hubs gives our customers the confidence to know where their vehicles will be maintained to the highest standards. It also gives us a base for our Volta Trucks Academy training school for drivers, sales teams and the technicians who will work on the vehicles. It gives us a Hub and a home in every market, with Paris as our first. I look forward to rolling out similar facilities in London soon, and all our other European launch cities in 2023.”
Casper Norden, Chief Fleet Solutions Officer of Volta Trucks
Manufacturing the Volta Zero.
In July 2021, Volta Trucks confirmed that the first Volta Zero vehicles will be manufactured in Austria, by Steyr Automotive, formerly MAN Truck and Bus Austria. The announcement followed a wide-ranging competitive tender process with potential suppliers throughout Europe. Steyr Automotive were appointed based on their extensive experience of commercial vehicle manufacturing, existing manufacturing infrastructure and consequent speed to market.
The announcement to partner with Steyr Automotive provides Volta Trucks with more than 100 years of manufacturing experience building large commercial vehicles. Over time, the contract will create up to 500 jobs in the region in addition to an estimated 2000 positions within the supply chain.
The company is also considering a number of additional manufacturing locations in North America to have the capacity to meet the significant volume ramp up envisaged the company’s Business Plan.
“The team at Steyr Automotive has demonstrable capability to manufacture the Volta Zero with decades of previous premium truck-building experience. Building our trucks in Austria, in the heart of our European launch region, will accelerate our time to market and minimise the environmental footprint of our operations, supporting our sustainability ambitions – a key factor in our decision-making process. The partnership will now allow Volta Trucks to quickly ramp up our production as we look to meet the demands of our customers who need to replace their fleets with zero emission vehicles as soon as possible.”
Kjell Waloen, Co-Founder and Chief Manufacturing and Logistics Officer of Volta Trucks.
The future
In May 2021, the company launched its Road to Zero Emissions strategy, with its product, commercial and manufacturing strategy through until 2025.
“We have seen huge success since launching the 16-tonne Volta Zero in September 2020. We have significant tail winds 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. This has created a very strong order book that encourages us to rapidly accelerate our plans.
When we launched the Volta Zero, we’d expected to be selling 5,000 vehicles a year with a single model by 2025. Given our pace of development, driven by customer demand, we clearly see the opportunity to expand the Volta Zero into a portfolio of vehicles to offer customers a wider selection of full-electric vehicle sizes, and to accelerate the change to zero emissions. 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. To achieve these ambitious goals and timelines, we will work in a very nimble and agile way to ensure our speed to market. We will also need a network of world-class manufacturing facilities, with our contract manufacturing partner, Steyr Automotive, already confirmed, and investigations ongoing into other facilities in North America to ensure we can keep up with demand.”
Essa Al-Saleh, Chief Executive Officer of Volta Trucks.
Volta Trucks – corporate information.
Volta Trucks was formed in 2019 in Sweden by co-founders, Carl-Magnus Norden and Kjell Walöen. It has its head office in Stockholm, Sweden, but most of its business operations are undertaken in the UK, with sales teams across France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, and the UK.
Its contract manufacturing facility is in Steyr, Austria, where the company started production of ‘Production Verification’ prototypes in Summer 2022, ahead of the start of production of customer specification vehicles in early 2023. The company will also establish a network of ‘Volta Trucks Hub’ service and maintenance facilities in its launch markets, with the first one already announced in Bonneuil-sur-Marne, to the south of Paris, and the Hub in London soon to be confirmed.
At the end of 2021, Volta Trucks employed around 200 people. By mid-2022, this had grown to over 450 and is expected to be over 700 by the end of the year. The company is recruiting a new employee on average every 22 hours.
In terms of funding, the company’s original seed funding in May 2019 was €4.5 million. It then raised €17 million in a Series A round in January 2021 and the Series B round delivered €37 million in September 2021. The company announced a successful Series C round of €230 million in 2022. In total, Volta Trucks has raised nearly €290 million to date.
The company’s initial seed-funding investor was Byggmästare A J Ahlström in Stockholm, with a number of supporting shareholders. The Series A, B and C rounds were led by Luxor Capital Group, with existing investors extending their investments and strategic partners joining the Volta Trucks journey. In Series B, this included first-time investor, Proterra, the company’s battery supplier, and Agility, a leading provider of supply chain services, innovation, and investment. B-FLEXION, formerly Waypoint Capital, also became investors in the Volta Trucks journey at Series C.
Ends.
Editor’s notes.
About the Volta Zero.
The Volta Zero is the world’s first purpose-built full-electric 16-tonne vehicle designed for urban logistics, reducing the environmental impact of freight deliveries in city centres. Designed from the ground up with an operating pure-electric range of 150 – 200 kms (95 – 125 miles), the Volta Zero will eliminate an estimated 1.2M tonnes of CO2 by 2025.
Safety is also at the heart of Volta Trucks, with its ambition of producing the safest trucks for our cities. The Volta Zero was designed for electric from the outset, which facilitates a step-change in vehicle, driver and pedestrian safety. Thanks to the removal of the internal combustion engine, the operator of a Volta Zero sits in a central driving position, with a much lower seat height than a conventional truck. This combination, plus a glass house-style cab design, gives the driver a wide 220-degrees of visibility, minimising dangerous blind spots. The prototype Volta Zero was launched in September 2020, with the first vehicles expected to be operating with customers in 2022.
In November 2021, Volta Trucks announced Europe’s largest purchase of full-electric trucks with DB Schenker’s order of 1,470 vehicles. This followed Petit Forestier’s order of 1,000 Volta Zeros. Volta Trucks now has a total order bank of around 6,500 vehicles, with an order bank value of circa €1.4 billion.
About Volta Trucks.
Volta Trucks is a scale-up full-electric commercial vehicle manufacturer and services company. Volta Trucks’ Head Office is in Stockholm, Sweden, with its engineering led from the UK, and forthcoming manufacturing facility in Steyr, Austria. The company also has sales teams across France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, and the UK. Volta Trucks is partnering with a number of global leaders in the supply chain for the development and production of the Volta Zero.
For further information, please contact:
Amanda Gibson
Head of Public Relations
E: Amanda Gibson@voltatrucks.com
Duncan Forrester
Chief Communications Officer
E: Duncan.Forrester@voltatrucks.com