Volta Zero set for production as manufacturer lands £191.5m funding boost

Electric vehicle manufacturer Volta Trucks has raised €230m (£191.5m) with its latest funding round which will be used to ramp up the company’s roll out of the Volta Zero.

This latest capital raise will fund all the company’s engineering and business operations through until after the start of series production of the 16-tonne full-electric Volta Zero at the end of 2022, the company said this week.

This includes the completion of a fleet of design verification prototypes for engineering development and testing, as well as a fleet of product verification vehicles that will be evaluated by customers in London and Paris in mid-2022.

It will also fund the continued development of the recently confirmed 7.5 tonne and 12-tonne full-electric Volta Zero derivatives, as well as prepare the company’s contract manufacturing facility in Steyr, Austria, to start production of customer vehicles by the end of the year.

Volta Trucks has production plans for 5,000 vehicles, in 2023, which will be its first year of series production. The company said it plans to increase this to 14,000 trucks in 2024 and up to 27,000 vehicles in 2025.

Volta Trucks predicts that by 2025 it will be operational across Europe as well as the US, with a portfolio of four Volta Zero models in production, including 7.5-tonne, 12-tonne, 16- and 18-tonne variants.

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Volta Trucks said its volume expectations are supported by “significant” customer contracts, including the recent announcement of Europe’s largest order of full-electric trucks from DB Schenker, which has ordered nearly 1,500 vehicles.

“This, and other recent pre-orders has taken the Volta Trucks order book to over 5,000 vehicles, with an order value of over €1.2bn,” the company added.

Announcing the new investment, Essa Al-Saleh, Volta Trucks chief executive officer, said: “The successful and oversubscribed conclusion of our Series C funding round gives us a positive external validation of our journey.

“As an innovator and disruptor in commercial vehicles, we are working at industry-leading pace and have significant ambitions.

“Today’s closing of the Series C funding round, bringing €230m into the company, gives us the financial runway to be able to deliver on all our goals as we transition from a start-up to a manufacturer of full-electric trucks.

“The confirmation of our order book of over 5,000 vehicles with an order book value exceeding €1.2bn, gives us and our investors, confidence that our pioneering product and service offering is both wanted and needed by our customers.”

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