IKEA is a large transport buyer with more than two million shipments worldwide per year. To reach its strategic climate goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions for product transport by 70% per shipment, electrification of heavy-duty vehicles is critical. Electrification of transport is one of the solutions to address the root cause of climate change.
Now IKEA Industry, Volvo Trucks and the Raben Group have joined forces in Poland to deploy zero-emission Volvo FM Electric trucks. The vehicles will be used to handle the internal flow of goods between two IKEA Industry factories located 14 kilometres apart in Zbąszynek and Babimost in western Poland.
The trucks will be charged at the IKEA Industry production facilities using renewable electricity from an external source. The first electric truck will begin operation during autumn and the plan is to expand the fleet based on the learnings from the pilot.
“We are happy to announce this collaboration which aims to accelerate our shift to more sustainable road transports. This project enables us to explore and learn about the challenges and opportunities in the deployment of electric transport operations at scale and its interdependencies in a larger transport network,” says Małgorzata Dobies-Turulska, Managing Director of IKEA Industry Zbąszynek.
Volvo Trucks started serial production of electric trucks in 2019, as one of the very first truck brands in the world to do so.
Today the company has six electric truck models in series production globally – the broadest electric truck line up in the industry. The company’s target is that half of its total truck sales will be electric by 2030.
“We are excited to work together with IKEA and the Raben Group towards more sustainable truck transports. IKEA and Raben both have ambitious climate goals just like Volvo. This project will give us valuable insights and constitutes a good basis for an extended collaboration in the future,” says Robert Grozdanovski, SVP Europe Central East & East, Volvo Trucks.
Piotr Banasiak, Managing Director at Raben Transport added:
“For the Raben Group, this project is the first step in the process of decarbonizing our own fleet driving towards the ambitious CO2 reduction plans recently scientifically approved by Science Based Targets (SBTi) experts. This is also an important project for the full truckload transportation process. We are one of the firsts logistics companies in Europe to undertake the ambitious challenge of running an electric truck working with a 24-ton trailer.”