Volta Trucks raises $A361 million to fund series production of Volta Zero

Anglo-Swedish electric commercial vehicle manufacturer Volta Trucks has concluded an impressively oversubscribed funding round this week to kick start production of the company’s 16-tonne fully electric Volta Zero commercial freight hauler.

Volta Trucks announced on Monday that it had concluded its latest Series C funding round with an oversubscribed €230 million ($A361 million) capital raise, led by New York-based Luxor Capital and including original seed investor Byggmästare Anders J Ahlström of Stockholm, which added to its holding in the company.

The rising will fund Volta Trucks’ engineering and business operations until after the beginning of series production of its 16-tonne fully electric Volta Zero at the end of 2022. It includes the production of various prototypes and product verification vehicles that will be evaluated by customers in London and Paris later this year.

New funding will also go towards the continued development of Volta Trucks recently confirmed 7.5- and 12-tonne fully electric Volta Zero variants, and also help prepare the company’s contract manufacturing facility in Steyr, Austria, to start production of customer vehicles by the end of 2022.

The company aims to produce 5,000 vehicles in 2023, increasing to 14,000 trucks in 2024 and ramping up to 27,000 trucks in 2025.

By the middle of this decade, Volta Trucks expects to be operational not only in Europe, but also in the United States, and boast a portfolio of four Volta Zero models in production, including 7.5-, 12-, 16- and 18-tonne variants.

Its ambitions are backed by “significant” customer contracts, which includes the recent announcement of Europe’s largest order of fully electric trucks from DB Schenker, which ordered nearly 1,500 vehicles. DB Schenker’s order joins an already growing order book of over 5,000 vehicles with an order value of over €1.2 billion.

“Today’s closing of the Series C funding round, bringing €230 million into the company, gives us the financial runway to be able to deliver on all our goals as we transition from a start-up to a manufacturer of full-electric trucks,” said Essa Al-Saleh, Volta Trucks CEO.