Volvo has entered a long-term collaboration with Danish ready-mixed concrete supplier Unicon to develop and supply electric FM concrete trucks.
The manufacturer is due to deliver 11 Volvo FM Electric models to Unicon that will be converted to truck mixers and operate in Denmark.
These trucks, which will have longer ranges and higher payloads than the company’s current FE Electric models, will start being delivered at the end of the year.
Heavy vehicles for the concrete industry are among the most difficult to electrify but Unicon has a target to reduce CO2 emissions from its fleet by 30 percent in 2025 compared to 2019.
The company also has a strategy to make its fleet of truck mixers emission-free in 2035.
Peter Ericson, Managing Director of Volvo Trucks in Denmark, said: “With these agreements, we are taking important steps in expanding fossil-free distribution solutions to the concrete industry, where electrification of heavy vehicles has been a very difficult challenge due to the heavy loads and continuous mixing demands.”
Christian Elleby, Supply Chain & Procurement Director at Unicon said: “With this major order and ambitious collaboration agreement, we are putting tangible actions behind our CO2 emission targets for our distribution.
“We are very much looking forward to this collaboration with Volvo Trucks, which gives us unique opportunities to jointly develop the right complete truck and body electric solutions for our distribution.
“With the new electric truck mixers, we are ready to support the requirements for emission-free construction sites in Denmark, which we see from the City of Copenhagen, as well as an increasing number of contractors and builders.”
