Volvo Trucks North America’s has received its largest single order to date for its new battery-powered Class 8 truck, the VNR Electric.
The Greensboro-based company will build 14 VNR Electrics for Quality Custom Distribution, a national food service logistics supplier that will operate the vehicles out of its Fontana, California distribution center.
Truck deliveries will begin in fall 2021 and conclude by the end of 2022.
The trucks will be leased to QCD by a California dealership, and supporting charging equipment will be assisted with funding from a $3.9 million grant awarded to Volvo Financial Services by California’s Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Review Committee’s (MSRC) Inland Port Program. Combined with MSRC grant funds, the leases provided through the program will reduce QCD’s total cost of operating the electric vehicles to the level of existing diesel technology.
The MSRC is a committee of California’s largest transportation and clean air agencies and stakeholders.
“Earlier this month, we delivered QCD’s first VNR Electric to be used in its first-class distribution and logistics services,” said Volvo Trucks North America President Peter Voorhoeve. “With this exceptional commitment to deploy an additional 14 Volvo VNR Electric trucks, we are pleased that QCD has chosen to continue its longtime partnership with our organization to achieve its sustainable freight transportation goals.”
Quality Custom Distribution, a Golden State Foods company, operates a fleet of 700 Class 8 tractors, more than half of which are Volvo VNR and VNL models. Golden State Foods is one of the world’s largest diversified suppliers to the food service and retail industries.
The company will operate the VNR Electric trucks over delivery distribution routes within Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
“The experience gained from this program will help accelerate battery-electric truck adoption in QCD’s fleet, as well as other last-mile delivery fleets,” said Mike Douglas, senior director of strategic procurement for QCD.
Volvo Trucks North America is among the first major truck manufacturers in the U.S. to commercialize and sell battery-electric Class 8 trucks. The company began taking customer orders for the new vehicle December 2020. With the order from QCD, Volvo Trucks now has orders for more than 100 VNR Electric models scheduled to be delivered and deployed in fleet operations throughout California over the next two years.
The VNR Electric is built at Volvo Trucks North America’s New River Valley assembly plant in Dublin, Virginia.
