Gothenburg, Sweden - These are the first actual pictures of Volvo’s new FL Electric battery trucks in operation.
For some time Volvo Trucks has been hyping its electric truck program, which aims to use the quietness and clean running of electric vehicles to move inner-city deliveries away from peak traffic hours to the still of the night - which you can’t do with diesel trucks because urbanites would complain about the noise and fumes.
You can even drive an electric truck right inside the customer's premises.
Volvo’s
studied the effects of goods transport at night in central Stockholm - and found that by avoiding peak hour traffic the trucks were able to do their jobs in one-third of the time that it took in daylight.
By avoiding peak hour traffic the trucks were able to do their jobs in one-third of the time that it took in daylight.
Now the first two FL Electric trucks have begun operations in Gothenburg, one with waste collection and recycling company Renova and the other with general haulage firm TGM, and Volvo has released details of their drivetrains for the first time.
Each 16 ton truck has a 185 kW/425Nm electric motor and two-speed transmission driving the rear axle, powered by between two and six 50kWh lithium-ion batteries, for a maximum range of up to 300km.
Charging is either via industrial mains supply at 22kW, which takes up to 10 hours from stone flat to fully charged, or by DC fast charge using a 150kW CCS/Combo2, which takes less than two hours.
Series production and sales of FL Electric trucks will begin in 2019 in Europe, and Volvo will be offering custom versions, compatible with several different brands of charging equipment, based on individual customers’ needs in terms of driving cycles, load capacity, uptime, range and other parameters.
It will even include route analysis, battery optimisation, service plans and financing.