ICA Sweden begins electrification journey with Volvo

Volvo Trucks is supplying a fully electric truck to Swedish grocery retailer ICA Sweden for delivery of refrigerated goods in the Stockholm city area.

Volvo Trucks is supplying a fully electric truck to Swedish grocery retailer, ICA Sweden, as it begins its transition towards electric transport. The truck will deliver refrigerated goods in the Stockholm city area.

The new Volvo FE Electric will be put in traffic during the first half of 2021 and operate in ICA’s daily transport assignments. This delivery marks the first step in the cooperation between Volvo Trucks and ICA, announced in November 2020, which will identify electrified solutions to reduce the environmental impact of goods transport.

The Volvo FE Electric truck for ICA is a 6x2 configuration with a gross combination weight of 26 tonnes. It incorporates four 66 kWh battery packs which power a 400 kW electric motor and two-speed Volvo gearbox.

“We are very pleased to have begun our electrified transportation journey at ICA,” said Emma Lindström, Logistics Director at ICA Sweden. “We are continuously working to minimize climate impact throughout our entire value chain and increasing use of electric transport is concrete proof of this. Through our cooperation with Volvo Trucks, we have the opportunity to customize an electric transport solution which not only fulfils the capacity and range demands for our trucks, but also contributes to considerably greener transports.”

In order to identify suitable routes for electrification, ICA and Volvo Trucks’ electromobility experts have jointly studied parameters such as load capacity, driving cycles, range and body build solutions to optimize the areas of usage for the new electric truck in ICA’s operations.

“Together with ICA, we have analyzed several transport routes within their Swedish logistics network, with the support of Volvo Trucks’ electric range simulator,” said Johan Larsson, Volvo Trucks director of Electric Solutions. “Sharing and analyzing detailed data has been vital in helping calculate energy consumption for transports – including loading and unloading – in real-life routes and real-time traffic situations, and thereby finding the best possible solution for ICA’s daily transport assignments.”

The fully electric Volvo truck ordered by ICA doesn’t require any extra daytime charging for its specific route, which makes it easy to replace the current vehicle with an electric model.

This delivery marks the first step in the cooperation between Volvo Trucks and ICA, announced in November 2020, which will identify electrified solutions to reduce the environmental impact of goods transport.