Volvo sells 20 new heavy duty electric trucks to Amazon Germany

Volvo will sell 20 of its new FH Electric heavy duty trucks to Amazon in Germany, with the online retail giant set to take delivery by the end of this year.

The new truck has a range of 300km but with a top-up charge during the day can cover up to 500km. It has a battery capacity of 540 kWh and continuous output power of 490 kW.

The truck maker began series production of the electric Volvo FH, Volvo FM and Volvo FMX trucks in September, all of which can take a total weight of 44 tonnes.

The introduction of large inter-city and regional haulage vehicles is an important milestone for decarbonising road transport given these vehicles make up around 36 per cent of Germany’s transport emissions, says Volvo Trucks executive Jessica Sandström.

“Big actors in the transport business play a key role in leading the industry’s efforts to lower its carbon footprint. Therefore I’m glad that Amazon is working with us to help reduce their emissions in longer and heavier transport assignments,” she said.

In Australia, buses, heavy and light commercial trucks account for almost 7 per cent of the country’s total emissions.

Amazon’s new Volvo trucks will be expected to cover more than 1 million road kilometres every year.

“Amazon is committed to decarbonizing its fleet, and the middle mile has been a notoriously hard-to-abate sector,” said Amazon Europe executive Andreas Marschner.

“We’re operating one of the fastest-growing commercial transportation electrification programs, and we’ll continue to invest and innovate to decarbonise and deliver packages to customers with zero emissions.”

Electric trucks ready for sales

RenewEconomy editor Giles Parkinson took the Volvo FH for a test drive last month in Germany, saying it was “not like anything I’ve ever tried before”.

Volvo Trucks, the world’s second-largest manufacturer of heavy-duty trucks, now has six electric truck models available, and this year made all of its medium-duty all electric trucks available to buy in Australia.

Manufacturing of the Volvo FL and FE Electric, for city distribution and refuse handling, started in Europe in 2019, while production of the Volvo VNR Electric for the North American market began in 2020.

The first Volvo Truck to hit Australian shores was the Volvo FL last year.

The company is also developing a 65 tonne hydrogen fuel cell truck with a potential range of 1000km, but that is not expected to be commercialised until the end of the decade, behind its rivals in the space.

It is aiming for half of all new trucks sold in 2030 to be electric.