Andre Klynsmith

Carbon Footprint

1.77 kWh Per Kilometre: What Two Years of South African Electric Trucking Actually Looks Like

Volvo Trucks South Africa's customer-operated battery-electric fleet has passed 250 000 km since the vehicles reached the local market in 2023, and the company has released the operating data behind that figure. For SADC fleet owners who have been told electric trucks work but never shown the numbers, this is the first meaningful local dataset.

CARBON FOOTPRINT

8 September 2026 • 5 min read

A quarter of a million kilometres is small next to the 400 million already run by Volvo electric trucks globally. What makes it useful is that it was run here -- on South African routes, with South African charging constraints, by operators who had to make it work commercially.

The utilisation picture

Across the customer fleet the trucks average roughly 2 000 km a month. The highest-utilisation units consistently record around 10 000 km a month -- a fivefold spread that says more about application fit than about the technology. Eric Parry, senior manager for sustainable solutions at Volvo Trucks South Africa, noted that the majority of the local fleet operates on shorter-route and urban distribution work.

The applications span a wide band: from eight-tonne 4x2 trucks carrying five to seven tonne payloads through to 6x4 tractor units hauling interlink trailers with payloads above 32 tonnes. That range matters, because it undercuts the assumption that battery-electric only suits light urban delivery work.

Everyone is charging at their own depot

All customer fleets currently charge either at their own depots or at loading and off-loading facilities, using infrastructure they installed themselves. Depending on the duty cycle, operators run a combination of overnight slow charging and fast top-up charging during the day.

This is the single most important line in the dataset for anyone in Namibia, Botswana or Zambia considering the same move. There is no public charging network doing the work here. The electric truck business case is currently a depot-infrastructure business case, and it stands or falls on grid connection, installed capacity and -- given regional supply reliability -- whatever backup or on-site generation sits behind it.

What comes next

Volvo Trucks South Africa says it will introduce its next generation of electric trucks later this year, offering longer operating ranges and additional power options, which would widen the set of applications the technology can cover. The company supports the current fleet with real-time battery pack monitoring, dedicated round-the-clock roadside assistance and range prediction tools through specialised dealer and workshop services.

Parry framed the milestone as foundational rather than final: the value of the two years of data lies in what it revealed about charging strategies, vehicle utilisation, uptime requirements and driver experience under real operating conditions. Those are the variables that decide whether a transport manager signs the order, not the emissions figure on the brochure.

About the Author
	Andre Klynsmith Entrepreneur & Technology Enthusiast Andre's expertise spans technology, blockchain, transport, and logistics -- with a passion for innovation and driving positive change across industries. info@laaimylorrie.com | laaimylorrie.com