Volta Trucks, the full-electric commercial vehicle manufacturer and services provider, and Cake, the Swedish maker of premium lightweight, electric motorcycles, are collaborating to decarbonize and decongest 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 family of brands and businesses. 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.

The Volta Zero will act as a mobile micro hub, or mini warehouse. Cake’s electric motorcycles will be loaded into the Volta Zero from the distribution center at the start of the working day and deployed into the city center. 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 Zero 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.

The integration of the two technologies offers immediate opportunities for retailers serving the rapidly growing e-commerce delivery industry.

The Volta Zero is the first purpose-built full-electric 16-tonne vehicle designed for urban logistics. In November 2021, Volta Trucks announced Europe’s largest purchase of full-electric trucks with DB Schenker’s order of 1,470 vehicles. This followed Petit Forestier’s order of 1,000 Volta Zeros. Volta Trucks now has a total order bank of around 6,500 vehicles, with an order bank value of circa €1.4 billion.

Cake’s model range currently consists of three different platforms—the versatile offroader Kalk, the modular utility bike Ösa, and the urban commuter Makka. With an extensive range of accessories and configurations, Cake is addressing a wide matrix of users and applications, including commercial use for last-mile delivery and other short-haul urban transportation.