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Volvo Trucks said it will start selling electric medium-duty trucks in Europe in 2019, with the first units to be put into operation together with a few selected reference customers this year.
According to the President, Volvo Trucks, Claes Nilsson : “Electromobility is fully in line with Volvo Truck’s long term commitment for sustainable urban development and zero emissions.”
He added: “We believe in full electrification for urban distribution as a first step. However we are working with electrification for other transport applications. This is only the beginning.”
Electric trucks drastically reduce noise and exhaust emissions and open up for new ways to manage logistics. More transport assignments can be carried out at night and fewer trucks need to compete for road space during rush-hour.
Head of product strategy, medium duty vehicles, at Volvo Trucks, Jonas Odermalm, said: “Our technology and knowhow within electro-mobility are based on proven commercial solutions already in use on Volvo’s electric buses, and solutions that were introduced in Volvo’s hybrid trucks as far back as 2010,” adding “ The vehicles themselves are only one part of what is needed for large-scale electrification to succeed.”
Enabling long term sustainable transport is a complex issue that requires a holistic and wide range of measures.
“We are working closely with customers, cities, suppliers of charging infrastructure and other key stakeholders to create the necessary framework for electrical trucks”, said Jonas Odermalm.
The World Health Organization(WHO) and the UN said 60 per cent of the planet’s population – about 5 billion people – will live in cities by 2030. This is an increase of just over 1 billion compared with current levels. This swift pace of urbanisation will impose immense demands on traffic systems, which in many cases already are insufficient to meet current needs. Within the EU, it is estimated that congestion and related traffic problems cost about 100 billion euros per year.
