VOLVO SET TO BEGIN SALES OF ITS ELECTRIC SEMI IN 2019

Forget waiting for your pre-order to be filled, because Volvo’s all electric commercial trucks are ready to go. To try to drive that marketing point home, the Swedish company announced that sales of its first all-electric truck- as well as deliveries to customers- will begin in 2019.

It’s pretty much understood that the automotive future is definitely electric, and that fact seems to be best understood by the makers of big trucks. It makes sense, since trucking companies are, perhaps, the entities that are the most sensitive to fluctuation in fuel price.
As such, big players like Cummins– as well as “wannabe” big players like Tesla- have been pushing hard to get in on the heavily subsidized racket market.

You can check out the company’s official press release, included in its entirety, below. Read it, then let us know how you think their electric trucks compare to Tesla’s in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

Premiere for Volvo Trucks’ First All-electric Truck


Volvo Trucks now introduces its first all-electric truck for commercial use – the Volvo FL Electric for urban distribution and refuse operations, among other applications. Sales and series production of the new model will start in Europe next year. With this introduction Volvo Trucks takes the lead in solutions for electrified goods transport in cities.
“We’re immensely proud to present the first in a range of fully electrically-powered Volvo trucks ready for regular traffic. With this model we are making it possible for cities that aim for sustainable urban development to benefit from the advantages of electrified truck transports,” says Claes Nilsson, President Volvo Trucks.
With better air quality and less noise in the city, it is possible to plan for housing and infrastructure more freely than at present. An electric truck without any exhaust emissions can be used in indoor terminals and environmental zones. Their low noise level creates opportunities for doing more work at night, thus reducing the burden on the roads during the day.
There is considerable market interest in electric trucks. Many potential customers have questions about the opportunities generated by the new technology and how it can impact their operations.
“In order to make the transition secure and smooth, we will offer holistic solutions based on each customer’s individual needs regarding driving cycles, load capacity, uptime, range and other parameters. Such a solution may encompass everything from route analysis and battery optimisation to servicing and financing. Volvo Trucks works closely with several suppliers of charging equipment. The aim as always is to offer customers high uptime and productivity,” says Jonas Odermalm, head of product strategy at Volvo Trucks.
Backing the Volvo Trucks offer is the company’s accumulated expertise in electrified transport solutions. Sister company Volvo Buses has sold more than 4000 electrified buses since 2010. The technology used for propulsion and energy storage in the Volvo FL Electric has been thoroughly tried and tested from the outset and is supported by Volvo Trucks’ far-reaching network for sales, service and parts supply.
“From experience we know how important it is that cities, energy suppliers and vehicle manufacturers cooperate in order for large-scale electrification to become a reality. With attractive incentives, agreed standards and a long-term strategy for urban planning and expansion of the charging infrastructure, the process can go much faster,” explains Jonas Odermalm.
Volvo Trucks believes that it is essential to take a holistic view of electrification of the transport sector to handle the ongoing challenges in areas such as electricity generation and batteries.
“For instance, in order to ensure that raw materials for the batteries are extracted in a responsible way, the Volvo Group works with the Drive Sustainably network, which has a special function that monitors this issue. The Volvo Group is also involved in various projects where batteries from heavy electric vehicles get a second lease of life, reused for energy storage. All the questions about handling of batteries have not yet been solved, but we are working actively both within the Group and together with other actors to drive development and create the necessary solutions,” says Jonas Odermalm.
The first trucks in the FL Electric range are now entering regular operation with customers in Gothenburg, the home of Volvo Trucks.

Source | Images: Volvo Group.

Walmart, Loblaw Join Push For Electric Trucks With Tesla Semi Orders

Following earlier news that the US-based trucking firm JB Hunt would be reserving and ordering a number of Tesla’s new semi trucks, Walmart and the Canada-based grocery chain Loblaw have both revealed that they will be doing the same.

Walmart has revealed that it will be reserving and ordering 15 of the new Tesla semi trucks — with 5 slated for use in the US and 10 in Canada. And the Canada-based grocery chain Loblaw has revealed that it will be reserving and ordering a total of 25 of the new all-electric Tesla heavy-duty trucks. Loblaw is currently working towards a goal of possessing an all-electric corporate fleet by 2030.

As a reminder here, reservation deposits for the Tesla semi trucks total $5,000 a piece.

While the order of 15 trucks from Walmart is notable, it clearly just amounts to the firm putting its foot in the water, so to speak, as the company’s US truck fleet is now comprised of around 6,000 units.

Reuters provides more: “The early orders reflected the uncertainty about how the market for electric commercial vehicles will develop. About 260,000 Class-8 trucks are produced in North America annually, and that market has a value of about $28.6 billion, said Don Ake, vice president of commercial vehicles at FTR, an industry economics research firm.

“The 500-mile (800 km) range between charges that Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk promised on Thursday for the Tesla Semi is about half the range between fill-ups of a diesel Class 8 truck. Heavy batteries cut payload and add cost, potential deal killers for fleet buyers focused on operating cost per mile.”

So, clearly, there are notable limits to Tesla’s semi trucks as of now, but obviously major benefits as well — greatly reduced emissions being an important one. On that note, it’ll be interesting to see if Tesla can garner interest for the semi trucks in China, despite being an outsider, as there’s expected to be a rapid shift away from diesel and petrol/gasoline powered trucks there over the coming decade or two. But maybe BYD and other Chinese players have that market locked.

MAN To Test Electric Semi Truck Later This Year

MAN, the heavy truck division of Volkswgen, says it will begin testing an electric semi truck in cooperation with nine of Austria’s largest transportation companies and the Council for Sustainable Logistics before the end of 2017. The trucks will have a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of between 12 and 26 tons. How they perform in medium and heavy duty service will provide feedback that will help MAN develop a larger portfolio of electric trucks for the future.

“The CNL companies will test out these vehicles in daily use,” says Joachim Drees, chairman of the board of directors for MAN. Dr Carsten Intra, another member of the MAN board adds, “The partnership with CNL offers MAN the ideal opportunity to further develop existing technology for series production using the practical experiences of members in the consortium. It will also help us gear our new product portfolio to customers’ requirements.”

“MAN has a clear roadmap for its trucks and buses when it comes to electro-mobility. We are introducing you to our first eTruck here today, and by the end of the year you will be seeing it on our streets,” Drees told the press. “At the end of 2019 we will be going into series production for an all-electric city bus, with series production of the eTruck to begin in early 2021. We will be using a flexible modular assembly of drive components that we can use for different applications.”

MAN unveiled its first Metropolis electric concept vehicle in 2012 and showed a further development of the concept in 2016. The MAN City-Truck concept vehicle, designed for applications in night shift deliveries to city center locations, is powered by a 250 kW electric motor which delivers 2,700 Nm of torque to the rear axle via a prop shaft with no gearbox. Lithium ion batteries from the Volkswagen Group are arranged under the driver’s cab above the front axle. The vehicle offers a range of 200 kilometers and has the same payload as a legacy diesel tractor from MAN’s TGS model range.

We know that Tesla is working on an electric semi truck which will be called the Tesla Semi (clever name, that). Also, Nikola Motors says it has hundreds of order for its Nikola One electric semi truck with a natural gas powered range extender engine.

As much as reducing the carbon footprint from automobiles is important, winning the battle against climate change will require heavy vehicles that haul cargo to give up their dependency on diesel engines. There are many more cars than trucks, but heavy duty vehicles contribute a disproportionate amount of carbon emissions to the environment.

Source: Charged EVs      Photo credits: MAN

Volvo Predicts a Slot-car Future for Over-the-road Semis

By running electrically-charged power lines through long stretches of highway roads, Volvo hopes to offer long-haul truckers electric vehicles that don’t have to stop to re-charge. Volvo’s doing this by bringing small toy technology from the 70s and 80s back, in a big way. I’m talking, of course, about slot-cars!

Those of you who’ve reached a certain age remember a time before Nintendo and Sega (let alone XBox and PlayStation!), and you will recognize the words “slot-cars” immediately. For those of you too young to have experienced them, they worked like this …

… yeah, life before GranTurismo and Forza was pretty lame.

In any event, the slot-cars worked by having an electric wire running across the track. The wire(s) provided power to a tiny electric motor mounted in a chassis about the size of a HotWheels car. The combination was usually good for scale speeds well in excess of 200 mph. Volvo’s not looking to scale up the speeds of the tiny racers, but they are looking to scale up the idea of powering an electric motor in a moving vehicle without resorting to on-board batteries.

In practice, the two power lines run along the road’s entire length (one positive, one negative). The lines are spaced so that live current is only delivered to a specialized collector mounted at the rear of, or under, the truck. As an additional safety measure (this is Volvo, after all), the current flows only when the vehicle is moving at speeds over 35 mph.

The first vehicles to use such a system could well be Volvo’s own hybrid busses, rather than full EVs, to help guard against short power interruptions and enable the trucks to spend more time in their EV cycles.

As of yet, there is no word on how such rails would cook impact any chickens trying to cross the road.

Source: Volvo, via Gizmag.