As more city centers like Paris and London move toward low-emissions zones, logistics and delivery firms are rethinking how they get goods to customers in those places. That’s why Swedish electric motorbike maker CAKE has teamed up with Volta Trucks, a fully-electric commercial vehicle manufacturer. With their vehicles combined, the two companies aim to reduce the carbon footprint of last-mile deliveries in places that utilize their services.
In Q1 of 2023, the massive fashion and design company H&M Group—parent company of the fast fashion chain H&M—will participate in the first trial of this Volta Trucks and CAKE collaboration. The trial will take place in Paris, France, where a fleet of CAKE electric motorcycles will deploy from a Volta Truck each day in the center of the city.
The Volta Zero truck will act as a micro-hub for the CAKE fleet, and can move about the city as needs require. The fleet of CAKE bikes will be able to return to the Volta to switch out their batteries as needed, while they perform last-mile deliveries of parcels for H&M Group throughout the day.
From the warehouse to the end customer, Volta and CAKE say, their combined service offers a “fully integrated, zero tailpipe emission delivery service.” To their way of thinking, it’s a way to improve sustainability within one link of the chain, as products get from businesses to customers in crowded city centers.
The case against fast fashion companies regarding everything from sustainability practices to human rights abuses had already been made many times over, and is well outside the scope of RideApart. Yet, at the same time, there’s also an argument to be made about all-or-nothing thinking, and not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
If you’re concerned about climate change and the environment, is there more you could be doing, particularly if you’re a big company and not just a random individual living your life? The answer is almost always yes.
However, taking incremental steps to decarbonize when and where you can also counts for something. Small steps may not feel like much at first, but they can add up—particularly if you’re a large, global company. If other, similarly large global companies start to take similar action, it adds up even more quickly.
“We’ve designed the full-electric Volta Zero to be the cleanest, safest and most efficient urban delivery vehicle. Most of our customers are using trucks to deliver from out-of-town warehouses to inner city stores. But as a forward-thinking brand, we’ve always sought innovative partners to deliver new and industry-redefining solutions,” Volta Trucks CEO Essa Al-Saleh said in a statement.
“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 center environments,” he 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,” added CAKE founder and CEO Stefan Ytterborn.
