Electric commercial vehicle pioneer Volta Trucks, the company behind a huge contract with Hull-based Paneltex, has secured European approval to deliver its new model at scale.
The Volta Zero will be the world’s first purpose-built all-electric 16-tonne vehicle, and has been given its European Whole Vehicle Type Approval certification. It allows the company to manufacture and sell in volume, as the process used to ensure that all vehicles meet the stringent and relevant environmental, safety and security standards.
Paneltex will provide the cargo box for the Austrian-manufactured trucks, and is currently fitting out a large new factory in East Yorkshire to handle the workload. A total of 240 new jobs are set to be created at Dianthus Business Park in Newport as a 140,000 sq ft site is scaled up to meet the demand.
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Essa Al-Saleh, chief executive at Volta Trucks, said: “Receiving the European Community Whole Vehicle Type Approval is a huge milestone for Volta Trucks, and our mission to make city centre streets safer and more sustainable for all. We’ve developed a completely new vehicle from the ground up, and it’s a testament to our engineering and developments teams that the Volta Zero has passed these stringent and demanding tests so quickly.
“We are now all set for the start of series production at our manufacturing facility in Steyr, Austria, to put trucks into the hands of our customers, and start the work of delivering on our mission.”
Second-generation ‘production verification’ prototypes are soon to be delivered to customers across Europe as part of a pilot fleet of vehicles. These will be loaned to customers for extended periods, allowing fleet operators to fully understand how the all-electric medium duty truck will integrate into their operations.
The Swedish business, which has established a service and maintenance hub in London, as well as in France, Germany and Spain, is anticipating first proper production within the next couple of months.
Paneltex is behind the specialist kit out of refrigerated supermarket delivery vehicles across the UK and North America, with huge growth following the explosion of online ordering.
The Newport base follows expansion at its Hull operations, and comes on the back of record performance, with a further 40 per cent uplift eyed with the record-breaking contract.
Chris Berridge, managing director, said: “We are delighted that the Volta Zero has achieved the European Whole Vehicle Approval accreditation, necessary to allow it to enter service in volume as a fully type approved vehicle.
“We have been working closely with Volta Trucks to ensure that Paneltex can also offer our own Whole Vehicle Approvals for second stage upfit which enables further development of specialised cargo bodies to add to the standard products.
“Construction of the production verification fleet has been ongoing both at Steyr in Austria and at Paneltex in Hull and we are ready to begin supply of production cargo bodies from Hull on time.
“Equipping our new factory at Dianthus Park remains on track, although still subject to receiving planning consent for the change of use for the building. We are intending that this plant will begin operation this summer to support the rapid ramp-up of truck production in Austria from that point. This is a significant and exciting development for Paneltex and we are proud to be supporting the design and manufacture of such an innovative zero emissions truck product. The whole truck has been re-imagined from the ground up to suit 21st century urban logistics and we believe that it will have global appeal.”
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