Volta Trucks, a full-electric commercial vehicle manufacturer and services provider, has revealed its first Volta Trucks Hub that will deliver its truck-as-a-service customer-focused operations as the first full-electric Volta Zeros start customer evaluation in mid-2022. This confirms the first location where vehicles will be serviced and maintained in Paris, with confirmation of the London hub location due shortly.
The Paris’ Volta Trucks Hub will operate eight workshop bays for the routine servicing of vehicles, including equipment needed to keep full-electric commercial vehicles maintained. The hub will also host admin offices, a Volta Trucks Academy training center and call center that will provide the interface between customers and the company’s team of technical and commercial experts.
This first hub is part of a wider strategy that will see a vehicle service offering across all initial launch locations of Paris, London, Madrid, Milan, the Rhine-Ruhr region of Germany and the Randstad region of the Netherlands. The first hub in Paris will cover the south of the city, with an additional hub covering the main logistics and distribution centers in the north of Paris to be confirmed soon.
“The confirmation of our first truck-as-a-service hub is a significant milestone on our journey to the production of our vehicles,” say Casper Norden, chief fleet solutions officer of Volta Trucks. “Uptime is critical for our customers, and the forthcoming opening of this facility gives our customers the confidence to know where their vehicles will be maintained to the highest standards. It also gives us a base for our Volta Trucks Academy training school for drivers, sales teams and the technicians who will work on the vehicles. It gives us a Hub and a home in every market, with Paris as our first. I look forward to rolling out similar facilities in London soon, and all of our other European launch cities in 2023.”
The Volta Zero is a purpose-built full-electric 16-ton vehicle designed for urban logistics. It is designed with an operating pure-electric range of 95-125 miles. With the removal of the internal combustion engine, the operator of a Volta Zero sits in a central driving position, with a much lower seat height than a conventional truck. This combination, plus a glass house-style cab design, gives the driver a wide 220-degrees of visibility. The prototype Volta Zero was launched in September 2020, with the first vehicles expected to be operating with customers in mid-2022.
In November 2021, Volta Trucks announced Europe’s largest purchase of full-electric trucks, with DB Schenker’s order of 1,470 vehicles. This followed Petit Forestier’s order of 1,000 Volta Zeros. Volta Trucks now has a total order bank of around 4,500 vehicles.