Swedish electric commercial vehicle manufacturer and services provider Volta Trucks has completed its first customer driving evaluation of the Volta Zero Design Verification prototype.
The evaluation event, held in Paris, takes the company a step closer to bringing zero-tailpipe emission trucks to market at industry-leading pace. Volta Zero is the world’s first purpose-built full-electric 16-tonne vehicle designed for urban logistics, the company said. It will reduce the environmental impact of freight deliveries in city centres. The vehicle is designed to have an operating electric range of 150 to 200 kilometres.
It was the first time customers experienced the medium-duty truck and had a real-world understanding of the vehicle’s performance. The customer feedback is being integrated into the next-generation production verification prototype vehicles, due to start at the company’s contract manufacturing facility in Steyr, Austria, over the summer.
The company said it will loan these production verification prototypes to customers for extended periods later in 2022, which will enable them to understand how full-electric medium-duty trucks will integrate into their operations. Production of the first customer-specification vehicles is still on track to start in early 2023, it added.
“These are very early and relatively immature prototypes that customers are never normally able to experience,” Volta Trucks Chief Executive Officer Essa Al-Saleh said. The CEO said the feedback was positive and felt confident that the company would be able to deliver the zero-tailpipe emission commercial vehicles to the customers, starting early 2023.
Volta Zero was revealed in September 2020, and the company has since been working to bring the vehicle to market. It has planned further customer evaluation events and media prototype test drive opportunities for the Summer/Autumn this year in Volta Trucks’ European launch markets.