Road haulage contributes around 6% of the world’s greenhouse gases. It’s an area that clearly needs electrification just as much if not more so than cars. Tesla is taking the lead where long-distance lorries are concerned, but a significant proportion of HGV deliveries are “last mile”. These frequently urban trips don’t require vehicles with 500 miles of range, and they have other issues to consider too. This was the gap in the market that Volta Trucks saw, thus beginning the development of its 16-tonne, then 7.5-tonne and 12-tonne last mile Volta Zero lorries.
The company now has 300 orders worth €85 million in revenue. For this feature, we visited the company’s contract prototype manufacturing facility in Coventry, to see exactly what goes into a Volta Zero and how it is promising to revolutionize urban mass cargo delivery. Chief Communications Officer Duncan Forrester gave us a tour of the facility and showed us prototype Zero trucks in various stages of construction.
Enhancing emissions and safety
“Volta Trucks was born around 2016 when our founder realized, at the launch of the Tesla Model 3, when hundreds of thousands of orders were taken, that there was very little going on in the commercial vehicle world,” says Forrester. “Simultaneously, he realized that air quality issues were at their worst in city centres, and there were very significant health and safety issues with trucks operating on urban streets. Transport for London Zone statistics tell us that 4% of road miles in London are undertaken by trucks, and yet 26% of pedestrian fatalities and 78% of cyclist fatalities are attributable to them. Our founder realised that was unacceptable and it needed to change by completely redesigning the truck.”
This was the context for the development of the Volta Zero. “Without any of the legacy of designs of the past, we could create a truck that was completely repackaged with a very compact electric powertrain at the rear, removing the need for the internal combustion engine at the front,” says Forrester. “That means that our driver sits much lower at 1.8 meters of height, so therefore is much more aware of the vulnerable road users that are operating around the vehicle.”
Centralized batteries for added safety
The trucks we were shown in Coventry were what are called “design verification prototypes”. “That's the best way of doing the very first build of a vehicle because you can really understand how everything goes together,” says Forrester. “If you have a supply chain issue or something doesn't quite work, you don't have to stop the production line.” The Volta Zero is based around a conventional “ladder frame” chassis. “The main strengths of this chassis are both in its means of protecting the batteries in the centre of the vehicle and also its very low front end. That's what accommodates our low driving position for the driver once the cab is put onto the vehicle.”
“In the building up of the chassis we start with a ladder frame,” continues Forrester. “We then put the Meritor e-axle into the truck. This is an integral part of the packaging of the vehicle. It combines the electric motor, the transmission, and the axle all into one very compact unit, and that really facilitates a lot of the packaging for the electrification.” The Meritor e-axle enables the centre of the ladder frame to remain empty, so Volta Trucks can fill this space with its Proterra-supplied battery packs. Up to three of these can be fitted. “Each of the batteries provides 75kWh of power and we can have three batteries to deliver our long-range vehicle, which carries 225kWh of power.”
“The Proterra battery in the vehicle works at an optimum at 40C,” continues Forrester. “Our engineering challenge is how you keep that battery at that optimum operating temperature in either cold or warm climates. So we have an incredibly complex heating and cooling system that maintains the optimum temperature. At the same time it provides heat or cooling into the cabin as well.” The HVAC system delivering this cabin air condition sits in the roof of the cab. “The hot air system is supplied predominantly from the battery heating. Having the HVAC mounted on the top of the cab, we can keep the cab environment as pleasant and warm or cold as the driver needs it.”
Central driving position and 360-degree views
An unusual feature of the Volta Zero is the central driving position, which is key to delivering the vehicle’s promise of enhanced safety. “The type of driver that's going to be using the vehicle is going to be doing 30 or 40 drops per day,” says Forrester. “With a central driving position, you always get out onto the pavement rather than getting out onto the busy traffic.” The Volta Zero’s sliding doors further aid this safety feature. “With conventional doors, the door swings out potentially into the pathway of a cyclist. With sliding doors, we have the safest possible system of using a vehicle on city centre streets.”
The cabin also provides 220 degrees of visibility for the driver. “We're reducing blind spots on the vehicle, making sure the driver can have that visual connection with those vulnerable road users operating around the vehicle,” says Forrester. This is augmented by camera-based views to provide a complete picture of the surroundings. “We use a full 360-degree camera system on the vehicle to minimize and eliminate blind spots. Those cameras will be looking down the side of the truck and then that is relayed to two screens within the cab, as well as a rear-view mirror type of system that completes the full 360 bird's eye view of everything going on around the truck.”
Simpler drivetrain for easier maintenance
Volta Trucks is also aiming to take advantage of the simpler drivetrain of an EV to provide lorries with lower operational costs. “A key benefit of electric vehicles is the minimizing of service and maintenance,” says Forrester. “An electric vehicle has got approximately 90% fewer moving parts than a typical internal combustion vehicle. That reduces cost for the owner. We have also made sure that any maintenance that needs doing is as easy to access as it possibly can be.” One aspect of this is making the control circuitry simple to get to, via a section at the back of the cab that Volta Trucks calls “electrical city”. “If anybody needs to access anything, it's all very easy and close to hand.”
The completed Volta Zero we saw in Coventry was vehicle number 15 of 25 design verification prototypes that Volta Trucks’s engineering teams have been using to validate all of its processes. They have also been employed for the extreme weather testing the company has been doing in Italy and Sweden, which is necessary “to make sure that by the time we get to production, we're delivering the highest quality vehicles,” says Forrester.
The Volta Zero has the potential to be a ground-breaking vehicle. The design is innovative, but unlike the now troubled Arrival, Volta Trucks will be using relatively conventional manufacturing techniques. This is enabling it to get its lorry into production more quickly than companies that have made radical changes in this area as well. Now that Volta Trucks has secured 300 orders, we could start seeing the Volta Zero navigating city centres by the end of 2023 – with silence, safety and zero emissions at the fore.