Scania delivers world’s first electric timber truck

Swedish commercial vehicle manufacturer Scania and SCA, Europe’s largest private forest owner, have developed and delivered the world’s first electric timber truck, boasting a capacity of 80 tonnes.

Scania delivered the new battery electric timber truck to SCA where it will transport timber in Sweden between SCA’s timber terminal in Gimonäs and the paper mill in Obbola outside Umeå.

SCA’s Obbola paper mill is already producing packing paper with virtually zero fossil fuels, and the introduction of the new battery electric truck is expected to begin the elimination of fossil elements in the transport chain of raw material to the mill.

Scania and SCA expect running the truck between Gimonäs and Obbola will help to reduce emissions by 55,000kg per year.

“The 80-tonne battery-powered timber truck shows that even really heavy transport can be electrified,” said Fredrik Allard, head of e-mobility at Scania.

“The partnership with SCA, is a early show of what is possible, is a clear signal that it is possible to electrify even heavy transport. A change of pace is needed to make Sweden fossil-free in time and meet the goal of the Paris Agreement.

The electric timber truck will be test-driven during the remainder of the Northern Summer and studied by a partner in the development, Skogforsk, the Forestry Research Institute of Sweden.

“We have come a long way in industrial processes, which are already 96 percent fossil-free,” said Hans Djurberg, head of sustainability at SCA.

“We are very pleased that we together with Scania can break new ground to make the heaviest transports fossil-free.”