EVwire brief: Scania will supply 105 battery-electric trucks to Swedish logistics firm Wibax under a deal billed as the EU's biggest yet for electric bulk transport.
The trucks come bundled with a support package spanning charging, solar generation, fleet optimization, and new business models aimed at lowering total operating costs. Once the fleet arrives, Wibax will rank among the Nordic region's biggest operators of electric heavy-duty vehicles.
“We need to work with a supplier with whom we can work with strategically and for the long-term, and that's Scania. We want to electrify our fleet quickly, and with Scania we can ensure that we introduce the new technology as quickly as possible to be able to achieve electrification in the timeline we have set out.”
Wibax CEO Jonas Wiklund noted that electric trucks are actually a good fit for its operations
Wibax hauls bio-oils and liquid chemicals for industrial customers across Sweden and Finland, work the company believes batteries can handle better than diesel over the long run. Much of its traffic runs heavy loads over short, repetitive legs, exactly the duty cycle where the CEO says electrification makes the most sense.
For Scania, the Wibax deal could become a “lighthouse” of sorts for other transporters.
“For Scania, such a large deal underlines our profound belief that battery-electric vehicles represent a strategic opportunity for our customers, especially with regards to future-proofing fleets to meet developing emissions standards.”
Context:
The two companies have history here. Wibax was one of three Swedish customers in a 2022 Scania pilot that put battery-electric truck combinations of more than 60 tonnes gross weight on the road, per electrive.
Wibax's pilot truck, a three-axle tractor-trailer setup, shuttled cargo between Piteå and Skellefteå in northern Sweden, an 80-kilometer (roughly 50-mile) run. Nine battery packs gave the tractor around 300 kWh of capacity and pushed its weight to 10.8 tonnes, roughly 1.5 tonnes over an equivalent diesel.
Wibax’s purchase comes with Scania’s support package including charging
Technical specifics have stayed thin. The Traton-owned truck maker kept the 2022 pilot's details mostly under wraps and is doing the same with the new fleet, with no specifications published so far. That said, the appetite for electric trucking is showing up across markets, with US carrier ABF Freight recently buying Tesla Semis after a successful pilot of its own.
Source: Scania press release
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