Volvo Trucks is supplying a fully electric truck to Sweden’s leading grocery retailer, Ica Sweden, as it begins its transition towards electric transport. The truck will deliver refrigerated goods in the Stockholm city area. Apart from being fossil free, the vehicle will contribute to significantly reduced noise levels and air pollution.
The new Volvo FE Electric will be put in traffic during the first half of 2021 and operate in Ica’s daily transport assignments. This delivery marks the important first step in the cooperation between Volvo Trucks and Ica, announced in November 2020, which will identify electrified solutions to reduce the environmental impact of goods transport.
In order to identify suitable routes for electrification, Ica and Volvo Trucks’ electromobility experts have jointly studied parameters such as load capacity, driving cycles, range and body build solutions to optimize the areas of usage for the new electric truck in ICA’s operations.
“Together with ICA, we have analyzed several transport routes within their Swedish logistics network, with the support of Volvo Trucks’ electric range simulator. Sharing and analyzing detailed data has been vital in helping calculate energy consumption for transports – including loading and unloading – in real-life routes and real-time traffic situations, and thereby finding the best possible solution for ICA’s daily transport assignments,” explains Johan Larsson, Volvo Trucks Director of Electric Solutions.
The fully electric Volvo truck ordered by Ica doesn’t require any extra daytime charging for its specific route, which makes it easy to replace the current vehicle with an electric model.
Ica Sweden and Volvo Trucks have extensive experience of working to reduce the environmental impact of their businesses. The Ica Group has set a target for its Swedish subsidiary to have a completely fossil-free road transport system by 2030, and for city regions this target should be met already by 2025. The goal will be reached by investing in new technology and investigating how initiatives for increased national production of biofuels can be supported.
An important part of the cooperation between Volvo Trucks and Ica involves electrified transport solutions in Sweden, both in city centers and eventually also on longer routes between cities. Ica Sweden and Volvo Trucks will work together to lay the foundations for electric transport solutions by making use of existing product and service offers and jointly testing new technologies. Both companies will together continue investigating the possibilities for further electrification of transport in Ica Sweden’s logistics network.
“We are very pleased to have begun our electrified transportation journey at ICA. We are continuously working to minimize climate impact throughout our entire value chain, and increasing use of electric transport is concrete proof of this. Through our cooperation with Volvo Trucks, we have the opportunity to customize an electric transport solution which not only fulfils the capacity and range demands for our trucks, but also contributes to considerably greener transports,” says Emma Lindström, Logistics Director at Ica Sweden.
Launched in 2019, the Volvo FE Electric and its sister model Volvo FL Electric are fully electric trucks, highly suitable for city distribution and rubbish collection. Volvo Trucks is now also running tests on its electric heavy-duty Volvo FH, Volvo FM and Volvo FMX trucks, which will be used for both regional transport and urban construction operations in Europe. Sale of these trucks is starting during 2021, with serial production commencing in 2022.
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