World's first electric urban freighter revealed

Swedish EV start-up Volta Trucks has officially launched its first model, the Volta Zero, which it claims is a safer, smarter, zero-emissions solution for inner-city parcel and freight distribution.

The Stockholm-based company, which has most of its business operations in the UK, appears to be well down the road towards a finished, commercially available product.

The first trials of the Volta Zero, in which the driver sits in a central position in the cab to make for easy entry and exit from either side of the vehicle, are set to commence in the first half of 2021, before production starts in 2022.

The truck itself measures 9460mm long, 2550mm wide and 3470mm high. It has a 16-tonne gross vehicle mass and is said to offer a payload of 8600kg, plus a 37.7 square-metre load space and a 16 Euro pallet capacity. A refrigerated body will also be available.

But at the heart of the Volta Zero's innovation are its safety and environmental attributes. This all-electric truck's motor is powered by lithium iron phosphate batteries offering from 160 to 200kWh of power.

Volta Trucks says the batteries are safer in the event of an accident than the nickel cobalt manganese equivalents used in many passenger cars, while the batteries are housed between the truck's main chassis rails.

The truck has an 'e-Axle' unit comprising the electric motor, transmission and axle – the integration of these components is said to result in a lighter drivetrain, extending range as a result.

Volta Trucks says the Volta Zero has a range of between 150 and 200km – sufficient, it says, for its intended usage for 'last mile' delivery.

Therefore the Volta Zero also prioritises the safety of vulnerable road users, including pedestrians and cyclists. The truck's expansive glasshouse offers drivers 220 degrees of direct vision, while the driver sits low in the cab with their line of sight at a height of 1.8m.

Volta says this allows the driver to better differentiate pedestrians and cyclists from their surroundings.

The Volta Zero also adopts digital camera displays inside the cab instead of traditional rear-view mirrors, similar to the new Mercedes-Benz Truck's MirrorCam set-up.

And it's equipped with the latest driver assistance systems, including a 360-degree camera, blind-spot monitoring, lane change assist, lane departure warning, and parking assist, among others.

Even the truck's exterior body panels are said to be safer. Made from a natural flax material and biodegradable resin, in an impact the material bends and ultimately snaps, giving what Volta Trucks terms as "a flexible fracture behaviour without sharp edges".

The material was developed by Swiss firm Bcomp in collaboration with the European Space Agency, and is also found extensively throughout the motor racing world.

To encourage the uptake of the Zero, Volta Trucks says it will offering a comprehensive Truck as a Service agreement. This will provide operators with access to a Volta Zero and cover all its servicing, maintenance, insurance and training requirements, along with access to a replacement truck if the principle vehicle is off the road for any reason.

Volta Trucks says it's targeting the same TCO (total cost of ownership) as an equivalent truck with an internal combustion engine, made possible by the fact the Volta Zero is said to have 90 per cent fewer mechanical parts.

Volta Trucks says it will produce 12 pilot vehicles in the first half of 2021, with the trucks to be built by auto engineering specialists Prodrive and Astheimer in the UK.

It hopes to produce 500 trucks by the end of 2022, with production ramping up to 5000 vehicles per year by 2025 and increasing from there.

“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,” said Volta Trucks CEO Rob Fowler.

“With the launch of the Volta Zero, we are changing the face of road transport. Volta Trucks is redefining the perception of the large commercial vehicle, and how it operates in and integrates with, the zero-emissions towns and cities of the future.

“This is made possible by sustainability, and electrification. Add to that 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.”

With eco-friendly alternatives the new frontier for the global trucking landscape, the established truck manufacturers will be watching Volta Trucks' progress with interest. While most major truck brands have already made significant progress with electric or hybrid vehicles, the threat of new rivals from the likes of Tesla, Nikola and Rivian – and now Volta Trucks – looms large.