With the Tesla Semi continuously delayed, startup manufacturers are working to fill the void and conquer the electric commercial truck industry. One such manufacturer is Volta Zero. The Swedish startup has been developing the world's first fully-electric 16-tonne commercial truck called the Volta Zero, which is on track to beat Tesla to the market. After launching a prototype last September, the first road-going "design verification" prototype of the Volta Zero has entered production at a facility in Coventry, UK.
Each of the 25 prototypes is based on the production-ready design, which features a glasshouse-style cab with 220-degrees of visibility and minimized blind spots.
Since there's no combustion engine, the driver sits in a central driving position with a lower seat height than a conventional truck. With an electric range of 95 - 125 miles, the Volta Zero has roughly the same range as a Mini Cooper SE and is designed for freight deliveries in city centers. For comparison, the Tesla Semi will have a range of over 500 miles, making it more suitable for long-distance deliveries. Volta Trucks estimates the electric 16-tonne truck will eliminate around 1.2 million tons of CO2 by 2025.
After production of the 25 prototypes is completed next January, Volta Zero will begin prototype testing in extreme cold and hot weather climates as well as crash testing to evaluate the truck's safety and reliability. Several of these production-ready prototypes will be given to selected customers, who will rack up millions of delivery miles to see how the Volta Zero performs in real-world scenarios.
Deliveries of the first customer examples are expected to start in mid-2022, with production taking place at Volta Zero's new manufacturing plant in Steyr, Austria. Production of the Tesla Semi, on the other hand, is expected to start by the end of 2023.
"In August, the first Volta Zero rolling chassis started testing, and we've already extracted huge amounts of data from that vehicle. We have integrated that feedback into the Design Verification prototypes that start production today," said Ian Collins, Chief Product Officer of Volta Trucks.
"We now move into a rapid test - learn - iterate - develop phase. This is going to be far more condensed and intensive than a normal vehicle testing programme, given our ambitious timeline to start series production in a year's time, that is driven by customers' needs for zero-emission trucks. This will take us to some of the hottest, coldest and most extreme conditions in the world, all to ensure that the production specification vehicles that roll off the production line by the end of 2022 deliver the highest possible quality standards and exceed our customers' expectations."