Volvo to Build Electric Wheel Loaders at its Arvika, Sweden, Factory
As part of its ambition towards industry transformation through sustainable solutions, Volvo Construction Equipment has announced an investment into the production of electric wheel loaders at its plant in Arvika, Sweden.
The SEK 65 million investment from Volvo Group will allow the Arvika factory in Sweden – which specializes in the production of medium and large wheel loaders – to expand its facilities with a new building and allow for the phased introduction of new electric wheel loaders.
It is not only a milestone in the plant’s almost 140-year history, but a significant moment for Volvo CE and its determination to be completely fossil free by 2040 – in line with the aims of the Paris Agreement and as laid out in Volvo’s Science-Based Target goals.
Coming soon after an announcement to invest in electric haulers from the company’s production facility in Braås, Sweden, it is also a signpost that Volvo CE is committed to achieving more sustainable solutions for customers across all its product lines – and is dedicated to driving that change forward in the here and now. These announcements are part of an investment strategy that allows Volvo CE to advance electric solutions across its production facilities, including also the Konz facility in Germany, Belley in France and Changwon in South Korea, where other electric machines are made.
Site Manager Mikael Liljestrand said: “This is a clear signal of our commitment to building the world we want to live in. It is more than 40 years since we last invested in a new building and what better reason now than to invest in our future, our planet and the next generation. We know that this is not only important to our customers and stakeholders, who rightly have high expectations on us, but it is also close to our hearts to be part of something bigger in building our future.”
Volvo CE has already successfully introduced compact electric wheel loaders to the global market with the L20 Electric and L25 Electric wheel loaders proving to be efficient, zero-exhaust emission solutions capable of driving down carbon emissions while maintaining high productivity across a variety of customer applications. Together with the ECR25 Electric, ECR18 Electric and EC18 Electric compact excavators and the mid-size EC230 Electric excavator, Volvo CE has one of the largest electric ranges on the market.
A phased introduction
Volvo CE will ensure a phased introduction model by model, taking into account all aspects of the electric ecosystem as it does so, including infrastructure requirements, charging solutions, battery handling and business models. The result will be reliable mid-size and larger electric wheel loaders that can be integrated into customers’ business, the company said.
It is not the first sustainability initiative from the Arvika facility. Despite actually increasing production last year, the factory managed to reduce its internal climate footprint by 350 tons of CO2 thanks to a variety of emission reduction efforts.
“Our goal at the factory in Arvika, as well as Volvo CE and the entire Volvo Group is to be climate-smart and to produce fossil-free machines,” said Liljestrand. “Together, we are quite clear that we want to lead this transformation and be the driving force of more sustainable ways of working for the benefit of our planet. This investment is Arvika’s exciting first step towards electrification.”
Building work is set to begin later this year, with further announcements on when production will begin to come.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.