Electric trucks hit the road to deliver beer in Perth

Five new Volvo electric rigid trucks have hit the road to deliver over 10 million litres of Asahi Beverages’ beers and other drinks across Perth each year.

Owned and operated by long-term Asahi partner Toll Group, the introduction of these trucks is part of their joint commitment to achieve a more sustainable delivery network in Western Australia.

The lower-emission transport solution is designed to replace diesel-powered delivery trucks and is expected to reduce Asahi’s greenhouse gas emissions by up to 140 tonnes annually.

Asahi Beverages CEO Amanda Sellers said: “Using electric trucks to transport our beer in Perth marks an important milestone in Asahi’s efforts to reduce emissions.

“Thanks to our partnership with Toll, these electric trucks will safely deliver our beer just like a regular diesel truck. This investment makes commercial sense for our business and is a big step towards creating sustainable and reliable supply chains with our customers and partners in Perth.”

Toll Group President, Retail and Consumer Nick Vrckovski said: “This milestone builds on our longstanding partnership with Asahi and represents the next step in our shared decarbonisation journey. By deploying electric trucks across Perth’s high-volume metro network, we’re showing how lower-emissions transport can be achieved at scale, without compromising service reliability, safety or customer needs.

Each truck has a range of 270 km on a single charge and more than 36,000 deliveries to pubs and bottle shops across Perth are expected each year.

This fleet represents Toll’s largest deployment of electric trucks for beverage distribution at a single location in Australia.

It also forms part of the company’s $67m investment in battery-electric heavy vehicles and charging infrastructure, co-funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

As part of this co-investment with Toll Group, the initiative includes three dedicated dual-port 60 kW DC charging stations at Asahi’s distribution centre at Forrestfield.

Image courtesy of Asahi Group.