Volvo Trucks has gotten an award to supply 70 Class 8 VNR electric trucks in Southern California. The award includes $21.7 million in grants for Volvo Trucks. That’s $20 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Targeted Air Shed Grant Program and $1.7 million from the South Coast Air Quality Management District (South Coast AQMD).
“Volvo Trucks supports our pioneering fleet customers in paving the way to a real-world, sustainable transport future. The large volume of early Volvo VNR Electric deployments in Southern California will help us kick-start this year’s successful commercial launch in North America,” Peter Voorhoeve, president of Volvo Trucks North America, stated.
Image courtesy Volvo Trucks
Fleet operators will start receiving the electric trucks in 2021 and they will gradually be delivered until the thirds quarter of 2022.
The trucks will be coming out of New River Valley factory in Virginia, and the automaker expects to be able to refine the production process and bring down costs from the relatively large order.
Image courtesy Volvo Lights Project
“Volvo Trucks will leverage best practices learned from the Volvo LIGHTS (Low Impact Green Heavy Transport Solutions) project, its collaboration with South Coast AQMD and 13 other organizations to develop an end-to-end blueprint to successfully introduce battery-electric trucks and equipment into the market at scale,” the company notes. “Combined with the other 25 truck deployments through the Volvo LIGHTS project, Volvo Trucks is committed to delivering nearly 100 VNR Electric trucks to the region for zero-emission freight transport.”
The coming electric trucks are particularly aimed at serving areas with more pollution, in order to help reduce area pollution. “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Targeted Air Shed Grant Program focuses on the regions that have the highest ozone and particulate matter (PM) pollution, including California’s South Coast Air Basin. South Coast AQMD is the agency responsible for attaining state and federal air quality standards for this region — including the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, and the Coachella Valley. …
“The 70 Volvo VNR Electric trucks deployed through this grant are anticipated to provide lifetime emission reduction benefits in excess of 152.63 tons of NOx, 1.317 tons of PM2.5, and 53,160 tons of CO2. As part of the project, South Coast AQMD will lead a data analysis effort to evaluate the full breadth of emission reduction opportunities presented by battery-electric trucks.”
This 70-electric-truck order is an exciting early step toward electrification of our heaviest, dirtiest vehicles, and I find it especially heartening to learn that these electric trucks will be servicing high-pollution areas where they can really help to make a difference locally.
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