Click to Enlarge.
Volta Trucks has started production of the first road-going ‘Design Verification’ (DV) prototype Volta Zero* vehicle in Coventry, UK. The DV prototypes are the first full-electric Volta Zero commercial vehicles to be built in a production-ready design. A total of 25 vehicles will be manufactured.
When completed in January, the fleet will start a testing scheme. This will involve Volta Trucks engineers replicating a wide range of customer usage and delivery cycles, as well as taking the Volta Zero to the extremes of cold weather environments in the Arctic, hot weather in equatorial conditions, and crash testing,. This according to Volta will validate the safety, durability, and reliability of the vehicle. (Volta Trucks Fully-Electric Commercial Zero to Debut in Italy; Solid Power – More Money from BMW, Ford, Volta Energy Technologies for Solid-State EV Batteries) Continue reading
Volvo Cars Shows Concept Recharge EV
Blah, blah, blah or really addressing the Global Warming disaster? Click to Enlarge.
Volvo Cars’ future is represented in the pure electric Concept Recharge, which the Chinese company claims does more than showcase the company’s future design language and product strategy. With the Concept Recharge, Volvo Cars is forecasting the steps it will take in all areas of pure electric car development to reduce its cars’ and its overall carbon footprint. The company plans to sell only fully electric cars by 2030 and aims to be a climate-neutral and circular business by 2040. (Volvo to Only Sell EVs Online as a Pure EV Company by 2030; A Decade of Chinese Ownership – Volvo Cars Posts Strongest Second-Half Sales in Its 93-Year History)
By using sustainable materials inside the car, equipping it with tires from recycled and renewable material, improving aerodynamics Volvo Cars can take steps to reduce its carbon impact through the car itself. Combining those with the use of clean energy throughout a de-carbonized supply chain, manufacturing process and use phase of the car, Volvo Cars believes it can reduce a car’s lifecycle CO2 impact by 80% versus a 2018 Volvo XC60, without losing the qualities that Volvo cars have become known for. This would mean that the Concept Recharge would have an overall lifecycle CO2 impact below 10 tons, when charged with 100% renewable energy – if, big if, Volvo is able to pull this off in a global economy that is self-destructing from the use of subsidized fossil fuels and little progress on addressing Global Warming.
Continue reading →