Volvo has announced two new fully-electric trucks designed to step in and take the place of urban delivery and refuse collection vehicles which are common sources of diesel emissions in cities around the world. Both will be available in the European market in 2019.
The Volvo FL Electric is the smaller sibling in Volvo’s small electric truck family, with a GVW of 16 tonnes. Just because it’s smaller doesn’t mean it will have a small impact — if anything, it’s the opposite. This Class 4 offering sits at the sweet spot for many delivery companies, especially those operating in urban environments.
Additionally, zero-emission vehicles are nearly silent, which allows them to operate in locations and times of the day when their noisy internal combustion vehicle counterparts are unable to operate due to noise restrictions.
The first of Volvo’s FL Electric trucks are being tested in regular operations with customers in Volvo’s home town of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Volvo has partnered with the leading garbage collection truck bodybuilder, Faun, on its fully-electric Volvo FE Electric refuse truck, and it already has its first customer lined up. The new truck will hit the streets in Hamburg, Germany, to put Volvo’s electric chops to the test to see if its tech will hold up to real-world conditions.
The FE Electric Truck is a distribution-sized truck that can handle gross weights of up to 27 tonnes and offers transporters a serious fully-electric Class 7 truck option.