Trucks
Trucks
“We have a business where CO2 neutrality is really important,” says Stephan Rüdlinger, chief executive of Raurica Wald. Because for this timber and forestry company, sustainability is at the core of everything it does.
Today, one of Raurica Wald’s key projects is to transport its recycled wood biomass to a heat- and electricity-producing, wood-fired power plant in Basel, Switzerland. Often, it transports as many as four or five truck loads a day.
With such a strong focus on the environment and renewable energy production, using an electric Volvo truck to transport the wood chips made perfect sense.
“The electric truck was one reason for choosing us,” adds Stephan, on how having an electric truck already on its fleet made the procurement decision easier for his customer. “One goal [of buying an electric truck] was to have an advantage in competition.”
For this customer, the carbon-neutral transportation of locally sourced materials was extremely important, and because it wasn’t possible to deliver them by train, they wanted an electric truck to make the deliveries.
“We are always looking for ways to deliver the material in an ecological way,” he adds. “It's in our genes.”
It's really nice to drive an electric truck. The drivers prefer it.”
Since switching to an electric truck, he’s found that the total cost of ownership is comparable so far to diesel and the running costs are lower.
But the driving experience is something else. The electric truck is better to drive, he says: “I see several advantages, but I think one of them is certainly the driving experience. It's powerful and it's more silent, less vibration. It's really nice to drive an electric truck. It only took the drivers a short time to get used to it. They now prefer it.”
He admits his company had to make some minor route adjustments for one client, which was a bit further away, but Raurica found that for the majority of customers, its electric truck has “enough range for a daily tour,” by charging it overnight, and then topping up on fast chargers during the day when required.
His advice to other companies considering an electric truck? “If you think it might work - just go ahead.”
