Volvo Trucks announced that it will deliver 20 fully electric heavy-duty trucks to Amazon in Germany by the end of this year.
Amazon ordered the Volvo FH Electric model, which last month entered series production, alongside the Volvo FM Electric and Volvo FMX Electric models in Gothenburg, Sweden.
All three have a gross combination weight of up to 44 tonnes and, in the maximum battery configuration (540 kWh), have a range of up to 300 km (186 miles). According to the manufacturer, when taking into account a top-up charge (for example during the lunch break), the daily range might be increased to 500 (311 miles).
Amazon intends to use Volvo FH Electric as a direct replacement for its diesel counterparts and exceed a mileage of one million road kikilometers620,000 miles) annually. That's over 50,000 km (31,000 miles) per truck per year on average.
Andreas Marschner, Vice President Transportation Services Europe at Amazon said:
“Amazon is committed to decarbonizing its fleet, and the middle mile has been a notoriously hard-to-abate sector. That’s why welcoming these electric heavy goods vehicles from Volvo into our fleet is such a critical milestone. We’re operating one of the fastest-growing commercial transportation electrification programs, and we’ll continue to invest and innovate to decarbonize and deliver packages to customers with zero emissions.”
Volvo Trucks currently offers six electric truck models - three heavy-duty Volvo FH Electric, Volvo FM Electric and Volvo FMX Electric plus two smaller Volvo FL Electric and Volvo FE Electric (since 2019) in Europe and the heavy-duty Volvo VNR Electric in North America (already the second iteration of the model).
The company's goal is to increase battery-electric (or hydrogen fuel cell) truck sales to 50% of the total volume by 2030.
We will see how well the plan is executed, especially since other manufacturers - (BYD, DAF, Iveco, MAN, Mercedes-Benz, Nikola, Scania, and Tesla to name just a few) - are also preparing to take some share of the electric truck market. In the US, probably the most awaited (and most delayed) Tesla Semi will enter the market on December 1.
