Volvo Commits to Sustainable Transportation with Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil and New Generation Truck Cabs
On April 24, Volvo President Peter Voorhoeve announced that the company’s Dublin facility has started shipping freight trucks that run on hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) with 20 to 25 gallons of the plant-based fuel in their tanks. The company anticipates purchasing over 1 million gallons of HVO from its supplier.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, HVO is a renewable diesel that emits lower levels of harmful compounds into the environment when burned in an internal combustion engine compared to petroleum-based diesel. This makes it a more sustainable fuel option for transportation.
Volvo’s efforts to utilize HVO in their freight trucks and develop a new generation of truck cabs represent significant steps in promoting sustainable and eco-friendly transportation solutions within the industry. The Dublin facility, which employs 3,600 workers responsible for building all Volvo trucks for North America, is in the final stages of constructing a $400 million factory for producing truck cabs. These cabs will be used in a revised version of the VNL long-haul truck and are expected to be released later this year.
Voorhoeve stated that “the availability of internal combustion engines that use renewable diesel, in combination with the emergence of electric trucks currently on the market and future hydrogen fuel cell trucks, offers multiple avenues for “decarbonizing transportation.” This shows Volvo’s commitment to finding sustainable solutions for transportation and reducing their carbon footprint.
