Grace Ashiru
Shoprite, a South African retail chain, has added a heavy-duty electric truck to its fleet of delivery vehicles. The car is a Scania Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV), which is entirely electric and doesn’t use fossil fuels or put out any carbon dioxide.
The truck has nine batteries, solar panels on its roof, and a fully electric cooling system powered by the vehicle’s battery packs. It can hold about 16 pallets.
The vehicle will be used to make local deliveries and will have a range of about 350 kilometres. It will be charged using clean energy from the group’s existing solar installations.
The Shoprite Group, Africa’s largest grocery retailer, prioritises reducing its environmental impact throughout its operations.
We’re doing this by making our truck fleet more energy efficient. The Shoprite Group’s chief supply chain officer, Andrew Havinga, said, “The purchase of one of the world’s most advanced electric trucks, which we will charge using our existing renewable energy infrastructure, is a major step in this direction.”
A press release says that the new electric truck is part of Shoprite’s ongoing efforts to make its supply chain less harmful to the environment.
It bought over 100 of Southern Africa’s most fuel-efficient Euro 5-compliant trucks. More than 1,041 of its trailers are outfitted with solar panels, allowing the fridge and tailgate lift to operate on solar power even when the car is turned off.
Despite the country’s load-shedding challenges and high electric vehicle prices, News24 Motoring research shows South Africans adore electric vehicles.
In 2022, when the Swedish automaker Volvo started taking online orders for the XC40 P6 Recharge, the 25 cars set aside for South Africa were sold out in just 24 hours.
