Volta Trucks, as a leading manufacturer and service provider of full-electric commercial vehicles, has confirmed that its company has prepared 7.5 and 12 ton electric truck variants.
The new variant is claimed to be coming and has entered the engineering development stage with one design concept that has been selected.
The 7.5 and 12 ton Volta Zero has been designed by Volta Trucks partner Astheimer Design in Warwick, UK. The new full-electric vehicle will form part of the larger 16-ton truck lineup that was launched in September 2020 and debuted in a production-ready design in November 2021.
Ian Collins, Chief Product Officer of Volta Trucks, said that his creative partners at Astheimer have created an inspiring vehicle design that is now beginning to be designed and realized.
“We have scaled our R&D operations to ensure that we can deliver our product portfolio to market, starting within a year with the 16 ton Volta Zero,” said Ian Collins.
The 7.5 and 12 tonne vehicles will cater to different use cases to the existing 16 tonne Volta Zero, with the 7.5 tonne vehicle to be put into service on Sundays in areas of Europe where the 16 tonne vehicle is out of service on that day.
“The full-electric 16-ton Volta Zero was our first vehicle and the heart of our brand. But while designing the truck, we knew we needed to scale our innovative packaging and cab concepts to accommodate vehicles of different sizes,” he explained.
The new variant features a smaller model that will bring innovative cab principles and a premium working environment to the driver, with a low mid-seat position and industry-leading visibility and safety standards.
Ground-up development of the 7.5 and 12 tonne vehicles will be carried out at the same speed that characterizes Volta Truck operations. Vehicle engineering has now begun, and a Pilot Fleet of vehicles is expected to be launched for customer trials in 2023, with series production set to begin in 2024.
The 7.5 and 12 tonne vehicles complete the initial Volta Zero lineup, as announced in the company’s Road to Zero Emissions strategy in May 2021. This will see the full-electric truck launch in the Paris and London early markets, soon to follow. then in Milan, Madrid, the Rhine Ruhr region in Germany, and Randstad, the Netherlands.
The upcoming 7.5 and 12 tonne variants will also help production to accelerate from 14,000 units in 2024 to more than 27,000 in 2025 and increase in the following years.
“Our customers tell us they value the safety and zero-emissions operation offered by the 16-ton Volta Zero, but also need those positive attributes in the smaller 7.5- and 12-ton vehicles, and they need them quickly, ” he concluded.
