DB Schenker orders 1,500 E-Trucks from Volta Trucks

DB Schenker has made the largest pre-order for electric trucks in Europe to date with Volta Trucks. The order includes around 1,500 fully electric Volta Zero vehicles. The Zero is an emissions-free, revolutionary vehicle design specifically for urban environments.

(Frankfurt/Main) Just a few days after the conclusion of the COP 26 conference in Glasgow, DB Schenker, one of the world’s leading logistics service providers and market leader in European land transport, and Volta Trucks, a groundbreaking manufacturer and service provider for fully electric commercial vehicles, confirmed a close partnership and the pre-order of nearly 1,500 fully electric Volta Zero vehicles – the most significant order for large emissions-free trucks in Europe to date.
Cyrille Bonjean, Executive Vice President Land Transport at DB Schenker in Europe, said: “On the path to climate neutrality, we have many challenges to overcome. The large-scale partnership with Volta Trucks allows us to significantly accelerate the electrification of our fleet and invest in sustainable, environmentally friendly transport solutions, bringing us much closer to our goal of climate-neutral logistics.”

Essa Al-Saleh, Chief Executive Officer of Volta Trucks, confirmed the agreement with DB Schenker: “I am pleased to welcome DB Schenker as a customer of Volta Trucks. Collaborating with DB Schenker on Europe’s largest order for fully electric trucks demonstrates that major logistics companies trust us to deliver a world-class emissions-free vehicle on time and at the highest possible quality.”

First deployments in spring and summer 2022

As part of the partnership, DB Schenker will deploy the first prototypes of Volta Zero trucks with customers under real distribution conditions in spring and summer 2022. Insights from these tests will feed into the series production of 1,470 vehicles, which will be built in Volta Trucks’ new contract manufacturing facility in Steyr, Austria.

The fully electric 16-ton Volta Zero will be used in the Ruhr area and other European terminals of DB Schenker to transport goods from distribution centers to city centers and urban areas. Here, the innovative design of the vehicle, the safety-oriented driver’s cabin to protect vulnerable road users, and the emissions-free drive provide the greatest benefits. Together, DB Schenker and Volta Trucks will explore the potential applications of the technology to possibly expand the offering. The rollout will begin at 10 locations in 5 countries.

Further site assessments

As part of the partnership, the specifications for the already announced 12-ton variant of the Volta Zero will also be developed jointly. In addition, further drivers will be trained and site assessments conducted to accelerate the deployment of the vehicles.

About the Volta Zero

The Volta Zero is the world’s first fully electric 16-ton vehicle specifically designed for urban logistics, reducing the environmental impact of freight deliveries in city centers. The Volta Zero has been designed from the ground up with a purely electric range of 150 to 200 km and is expected to save approximately 1.2 million tons of CO₂ by 2025.
Safety is also a priority at Volta Trucks, as the company aims to build the safest trucks for our cities. The Volta Zero has been designed from the outset for electric drive, significantly enhancing the safety of vehicles, drivers, and pedestrians. With the elimination of the combustion engine, the driver of a Volta Zero sits in a central driving position with a much lower seat height than in a conventional truck. This combination and the greenhouse-like cabin design provide the driver with a wide field of vision of 220 degrees, minimizing dangerous blind spots. The prototype of the Volta Zero was unveiled in September 2020.

Photo: © Volta Trucks / Image caption: A Volta Zero from DB Schenker in Milan