New take on last-mile deliveries

Volta Trucks and Cake, the Swedish maker of lightweight, electric motorcycles, have announced a collaboration aimed at decarbonising and decongesting last mile deliveries, while also improving service to end customers.

The first trial, planned in Q1 2023 in Paris will be with the H&M Group, a fashion and design business. The fully integrated, zero tailpipe emission delivery service from warehouse to end customer uses the most efficient combination of electric trucks and electric two wheelers.

Free to operate in the world’s most rigorous zero-emission zones, the Volta Zero truck will act as a mobile micro hub, or mini warehouse. Cake’s electric motorcycles will be loaded into the Volta Zero from the distribution centre at the start of the working day and deployed into the city centre.

From there, the Cake electric motorcycles will deliver the last mile of parcels to customers in the fastest and most sustainable way, without impacting the traffic, or struggling with parking. The Volta truck is free to redeploy to other locations throughout the day or to provide quick-replacement batteries for the Cake motorcycles if necessary, providing an efficient city-wide coverage for deliveries.

Volta Trucks and Cake were both founded to tackle the modern challenges of transportation. Focused on two very different vehicle platforms, yet sharing the same objectives, the integration of the two technologies offers immediate opportunities for retailers serving the rapidly growing e-commerce delivery industry.

Essa Al-Saleh, Chief Executive Officer of Volta Trucks, said: “We’ve designed the full-electric Volta Zero to be the cleanest, safest and most efficient urban delivery vehicle. But as a forward-thinking brand, we’ve always sought innovative partners to deliver new and industry-redefining solutions.

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“The partnership between Volta Trucks and Cake will showcase how a combination of zero tailpipe emission transport solutions can bring benefit to brands and customers, such as the H&M Group, and city centre environments.”

Stefan Ytterborn, founder and CEO of Cake, continued: “As the majority of today’s last-mile delivery chains will soon be banned in many of the world’s largest cities, world-leading e-commerce consumer brands need to engage in future-proof concepts now. Solutions need to be developed to offer lower emissions and less congestion, while benefiting from far more efficient deliveries all the way to the end customer.

“This innovative mobility ecosystem that the three brands are trialing is setting a clear direction for both healthier cities and business advantages.”