Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - August 2024 - 26

ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT
Volvo CE announced
that the EC230
electric excavator is
now commercially
available in North
America with two
new charging units.
trucks and machines working within
confined applications.
" Our platform engineering approach
prioritizes safety by incorporating highassurance
redundancy systems designed
to mitigate potential emergency
situations, " said Shahrukh Kazmi, chief
product officer at Volvo Autonomous
Solutions. " We built the Volvo VNL
Autonomous from the ground up, integrating
these redundancy systems to
ensure that every safety-critical component
is intentionally duplicated. "
Now on demand
Volvo Trucks also announced Volvo on
Demand at ACT Expo, an initiative that
provides a Truck-as-a-Service (TaaS)
business model to increase the adoption
rate of electrified trucks.
" Volvo on Demand is the easiest way
for customers to add a battery-electric
truck to their fleet by providing the ability
to test the technology and understand
the requirements to operate an
electric fleet without a substantial upfront
investment, " said Charles Carter,
vice president, services and solutions.
The program will use 25 Class 8 Volvo
VNR Electric trucks, including 20 6x4
tractors with the six-battery configuration
and five 4x2 tractors with the fourbattery
configuration. The program will
reportedly provide customers with flexible
term options as short as 12 months.
" Today, we have customers who've
26 August 2024
successfully deployed the VNR Electric
and are continuing to seek ways to scale
their operations, " said Jared Ruiz, regional
VP of Volvo Trucks. " We have a number
of customers who have expressed interest
in adding the VNR Electric to their
operation but want to understand how it
will fit within their specific applications. "
Volvo currently has 470 electric VNR
trucks on the road with 57 different
customers. " An electric truck is the
same as an ICE truck in that it is an asset
that is meant for transportation,
which is why we want to have an uptime
of 95% for our battery-electric
trucks, " Voorhoeve said.
Electrified excavation
Ray Gallant, VP sustainability and productivity
services, provided an update
on Volvo CE's sustainability efforts and
the results of several trial programs
that the company has run using electric
excavators. " It's an exciting time in
the off-road segment as this transformation
starts to gain traction, " Gallant
said. " Collaborating with our on-roadfocused
colleagues has helped us accelerate
the transition in thoughtful
and significant ways. "
Gallant outlined Volvo CE's broad
strategy for gaining adoption of the
firm's electrified offerings. " You don't
achieve sustainability - you're always
working to be more sustainable throughout
the lifecycle of your products, " he
said. " There are three key steps to creating
that sustainability. First, you have to
prove that the new equipment and sustainable
power sources will perform at
least as well as the machines they're replacing.
If we can't do that, it's very hard
to convince customers to make the
switch to new equipment.
" The second step is that we have to
prove and ensure as OEMs that there is
a charging infrastructure for these new
sustainable power systems, be it electric,
hydrogen or alternate fuels. We
have to make sure that customers can
refuel and run their machines continually.
The third is probably most important.
Once we have the product and
charging or refueling proven, then we
can work with our customers to find
new applications that the sustainable
machines can do better than the ones
they're replacing. "
Volvo introduced its first battery-electric
off-highway machines (three small
excavators and two small compact loaders)
in 2019 and first brought them to the
U.S. in 2021. During its press conference
at ACT Expo this year, Volvo CE announced
that the EC230 electric excavator
is now commercially available in North
America with two new charging units.
The EC230 is a 23-ton unit that represents
a new high watermark for electrified
excavators. According to Volvo CE,
most electric-only machines currently on
the market are compact models.
TRUCK & OFF-HIGHWAY ENGINEERING
VOLVO CE
Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - August 2024

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