Volta Trucks, the leading and disruptive full-electric commercial vehicle manufacturer and services provider, has continued its latest tour of European launch cities with a viewing of the Volta Zero in Milan, Italy.
The event offered prospects, customers, media, and policy makers the opportunity to see the world’s first purpose-built full-electric medium-duty commercial vehicle and understand how it will make a significant contribution to the safety and decarbonisation of Italian cities. It also offered potential customers the opportunity of speaking with Volta Trucks’ own policy experts to better understand the subsidies and incentives available for the transition to zero tailpipe emission vehicles.
The event, that took place at Superstudio in Via Tortona was the second time that the Volta Zero had visited Italy following its market introduction in June 2021. In the interim, Volta Trucks has taken significant steps towards the start of production of the Volta Zero at the end of 2022. The company has confirmed the final design of the vehicle and built and undertaken the first testing of road-going prototype vehicles. It’s also confirmed that the production vehicles will be built by its contract manufacturing partner, Steyr Automotive in Steyr, Austria. More recently, it announced Europe’s largest single order of full-electric large commercial vehicles with nearly 1,500 trucks pre-ordered by DB Schenker, Europe’s largest land transport company, as well as having secured an additional €230 million in Series C funding.
Speaking at the event, Carla Detrieux, Business Development Director of Volta Trucks, said; “Having made such significant progress over the past few months, I’m delighted to be reintroducing the full-electric Volta Zero to our potential customers in Milan - one of our key European launch cities. Prototype vehicles are now being tested by our engineers, and it’s only a few months until we will start trials of vehicles with customers. Fleet operators can now really start to understand how the Volta Zero will integrate into their operations and support their corporate and client’s decarbonisation objectives. We’ve already taken over 5,000 pre-orders for trucks and by this time next year, we will have delivered the first production vehicles to customers. The first Italian vehicles will follow soon afterwards, so it’s great to join our Italian customers as we move forwards on our journey.”
Editor’s notes.
About the Volta Zero.
The Volta Zero is the world’s first purpose-built full-electric 16-tonne vehicle designed for urban logistics, reducing the environmental impact of freight deliveries in city centres. Designed from the ground up with an operating pure-electric range of 150 - 200 kms (95 – 125 miles), the Volta Zero will eliminate an estimated 1.2M tonnes of CO2 by 2025.
Safety is also at the heart of Volta Trucks, with its ambition of producing the safest trucks for our cities. The Volta Zero was designed for electric from the outset, which facilitates a step-change in vehicle, driver and pedestrian safety. Thanks to the removal of the internal combustion engine, the operator of a Volta Zero sits in a central driving position, with a much lower seat height than a conventional truck. This combination, plus a glass house-style cab design, gives the driver a wide 220-degrees of visibility, minimising dangerous blind spots. The prototype Volta Zero was launched in September 2020, with the first vehicles expected to be operating with customers in mid-2022.
In November 2021, Volta Trucks announced Europe’s largest purchase of full-electric trucks with DB Schenker’s order of 1,470 vehicles. This followed Petit Forestier’s order of 1,000 Volta Zeros. Volta Trucks now has a total order bank of around 5,000 vehicles, with an order bank value of circa €1.2 billion.
About Volta Trucks.
Volta Trucks is a scale-up full-electric commercial vehicle manufacturer and services company. Volta Trucks’ Head Office is in Stockholm, Sweden, with its engineering led from the UK, and forthcoming manufacturing facility in Steyr, Austria. The company also has sales teams across France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the UK. Volta Trucks is partnering with a number of global leaders in the supply chain for the development and production of the Volta Zero.
