As part of its ongoing commitment to rely on electricity for parcels delivery, DPD Switzerland has announced that from December onwards, it will start using an all-electric truck.
The company placed an order with the Swiss company Designwerk Products AG in Winterthur for a Futuricum Logistics 18E fully electric truck. This will be delivered by mid-December 2020 at the latest and will initially be used for the journey between the DPD depot in Möhlin (AG) and the sorting centre in Buchs.
The Futuricum Logistics 18E electric truck is based on a Volvo vehicle. According to the manufacturer, with a storage capacity of 680 Kilowatt hours, the battery is the largest truck battery in Europe and is the first to be used commercially in this form worldwide. Thanks to the size of the energy accumulator, the electric truck has a range of up to 760 kilometres. Due to its configuration, the electric truck can replace a truck with a combustion engine in its entirety and perform its operations without any problems throughout the DPD Switzerland network without the need for recharging. Furthermore, in terms of range, Designwerk claims that the vehicle is also very competitive on long-distance journeys compared to hydrogen vehicles.
During its first route, the vehicle must travel at least 80,000 km per year. The electric truck, when compared to an equivalent diesel-powered truck, saves about 90 kilograms of CO2 for a hundred kilometers, or about 72 tonnes of CO2 savings per year. In the depots operated by DPD, it will also be recharged with Swiss ecological electricity only.
Tilmann Schultze, CEO of DPD Switzerland, commented: “Although the use of the new technology is a priority, the exemption from fuel costs and the exemption from the heavy vehicle fee still valid for the truck are fundamental for the implementation of this project from an economic point of view.”
Source: DPD Group
