Volta Trucks starts production of prototype vehicles in UK

Volta Trucks has started production of the first road-going prototype Volta Zero vehicle at a bespoke facility in Coventry, UK.  

The prototypes are the first fully-electric Volta Zero vehicles to be built in the recently unveiled production-ready design.

A total of 25 vehicles will be manufactured and, once completed in January, the fleet will embark on a rigorous testing regime.

The results of the testing programme will be fed into the final prototype stage – ‘Production Verification’ (PV). The PV prototype vehicles will be built at the company’s new manufacturing plant in Steyr, Austria, in mid-2022. Many of these production-specification prototypes will be lent to selected customers for extended periods to be tested in their real-world logistics conditions.

Ian Collins, chief product officer of Volta Trucks, said; “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. 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.”

The Volta Zero is the world’s first purpose-built full-electric 16-tonne vehicle designed for inner-city logistics. It has a range of 95 – 125 miles and can carry an 8,600Kg payload.