Volvo Group is partnering with California's South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD), and industry leaders in transportation and electrical charging infrastructure, to bring all-electric Volvo Trucks in California next year, and commercialize them in North America in 2020.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has preliminarily awarded $44.8 million to SCAQMD for the Volvo LIGHTS (Low Impact Green Heavy Transport Solutions) project. The Volvo LIGHTS project will involve 16 partners, and transform freight operations at the facilities of two of the United States' top trucking fleets. Volvo LIGHTS is part of California Climate Investments, a statewide initiative that puts billions of Cap-and-Trade dollars to work reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The demonstration units will be based on the technology currently being used in the Volvo FE Electric, which Volvo Trucks presented in May and will begin selling in Europe in 2019.

A variety of smart technologies will be used - including remote diagnostics, geofencing, and the company's web-based service management platform - to monitor all truck performance aspects of the project, and maximize vehicle uptime.

Volvo Trucks will deploy eight multi-configuration battery Class 8 electric demonstration units (GVW +15 tons), and an additional 15 precommercial and commercial units, throughout California's South Coast Air Basin.

The project will also integrate non-truck battery-electric equipment, non-proprietary chargers, and solar energy production equipment.

Truckmakers are driving full speed to secure a corner of the electric and autonomous drive markets, with other contenders in North America including Tesla's electric semi truck, Ford and Daimler.

Volvo FE Electric

• Fully electrically-powered truck for distribution, refuse collection and other applications in urban conditions, GVW 27 tonnes.
• Driveline: Two electric motors with 370 kW max power (260 kW cont. power) with a Volvo 2-speed transmission. Max torque electric motors 850 Nm.
• Max torque rear axle 28 kNm.
• Energy storage: Lithium-ion batteries, 200-300 kWh.
• Range: Up to 200 km.
• Charging: Two different charging systems are available. CCS2: Maximum charge power 150 kW DC. Low Power Charging: Maximum charge power 22 kW AC.
• Charging time: From empty to fully charged batteries (300 kWh): CCS2 150 kW appr. 1.5 hours, Low power charging appr.10 hours.