Volvo Trucks announced that it is launching a line of all electric heavy duty trucks. The introduction of the new products will provide the company with a full range of battery-electric trucks in Europe for distribution, refuse, regional transport and urban construction operations. The company stated that Volvo Trucks’ massive drive towards electrification marks a major step forwards on the road to fossil-free transport.

Roger Alm, President Volvo Trucks, said:

“By rapidly increasing the number of heavy-duty electric trucks, we want to help our customers and transport buyers to achieve their ambitious sustainability goals. We’re determined to continue driving our industry towards a sustainable future.”

The company is currently running tests of the electric heavy-duty Volvo FH, Volvo FM and Volvo FMX trucks, which will be used for regional transport and urban construction operations in Europe, with sales expected to begin next year, and volume production in 2022. The trucks will have a gross combination weight of up to 44 tonnes, and a range of up to 300 km, depending on battery configuration.

The new heavy duty trucks will fill out the company’s growing lineup of electric vehicles. Volvo Trucks launched the Volvo FL Electric and Volvo FE Electric medium duty trucks in 2019 in Europe, and is introducing the Volvo VNR Electric regional transport truck in North America later this year.

The company stated also stated that it intends to add battery-electric and fuel cell electric trucks with a longer range later this decade. To help the company achieve this goal, Volvo recently entered a joint venture Daimler Truck AG, focused on the development, production and commercialization of hydrogen fuel cell systems, primarily for use in heavy-duty trucks.

Alm said:

“Our primary task is to ease the transition to electrified vehicles. We’re doing this by offering holistic solutions that include route planning, correctly specified vehicles, charging equipment, financing and services. The long-term security that we and our global network of dealers and service workshops provide our customers with will be more important than ever.”