As it continues to develop technology required to establish the necessary infrastructure to support vehicle electrification and its own VNR Electric Class 8 truck, Greensboro-based Volvo Trucks North America has planted its flag in the heart of Silicon Valley and is tapping into the tech-rich startup community for help.
To build a community of innovators to design solutions to support the global transition to more sustainable transport systems, Volvo Trucks operates The Innovation Lab at Volvo Group. There it can collaborate with start-ups to combine real-world insights, analyze emerging trends and validate new products and services to help customers improve their economic and environmental sustainability goals.
“Volvo Trucks is committed to continuing to lead the global movement to decarbonize transport,” said Peter Voorhoeve, president of Volvo Trucks North America. “When we commercialized our Class 8 Volvo VNR Electric model, we recognized the critical need to work with an array of partners to build a successful ecosystem for electromobility — considering everything from the point of sale to building a comprehensive service network, developing a skilled workforce and ensuring access to a stable and cost-effective power supply.
“Volvo Trucks is collaborating with companies across the industry to demonstrate a range of strategies to achieve these goals, including supporting emerging solutions providers through our Innovation Lab at Volvo Group.”
Among these collaborations is one with Amply Power, an electric vehicle charging and energy management provider that shares its insight into some of the charging infrastructure challenges that could deter fleet operators from investing in a battery-electric fleet. In turn, Volvo Trucks has shared real-world experience gained from working with multiple customers that have installed charging infrastructure to support the deployment of Volvo VNR Electrics.
Together, they are working to support the charge management program for Manhattan Beer Distributors, which is deploying its first five Volvo VNR Electric trucks in its New York beverage distribution fleet.
“The Innovation Lab is the perfect environment for Volvo Group and the start-up ecosystem to co-create solutions that bring value to all industry stakeholders,” said Fredy Daza, director of the Innovation Lab. “Having AMPLY as a member of our innovation community has helped provide visibility to some of the challenges in deploying and reliably managing charging infrastructure for Class 8 electric vehicles, which is essential to the success of the transport industry's electrification journey.”
The Volvo VNR Electric, commercialized in December 2020, has already been deployed to several fleets in the U.S. to support drayage, local and regional distribution, pickup and delivery, and food and beverage distribution. Volvo Trucks and AMPLY will team up to support a California fleet customer to design and manage its electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure plan to maximize cost savings, charging efficiency and vehicle uptime.
The Volvo VNR Electric trucks have a range of 150 miles and a battery capacity of 264 kilowatt hours, needing approximately 70 minutes to reach 80% charge. Further collaborations will be planned and announced as AMPLY and Volvo Trucks continue to deploy more electric vehicles.
Electromobility services is not the only focus of the Innovation Lab. It is also involved in multiple projects to help transform the commercial transportation sector, including autonomous solutions, logistics services and site operations solutions.
