The Volvo EC55 Electric customer pilot excavator working at aluminum company Xinyuan’s site in Liaocheng, Shandong Province.

Following the unveiling of the Volvo EC55 Electric excavator in China at the China International Import Expo 2020, the first customer pilot machine has now been delivered to aluminum company Xinyuan for customer testing.

Xinyuan is using the 5.5-ton electric excavator from Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) for ground grading and earthwork loading at its new plant in Liaocheng, Shandong Province. The customer trial will last 500 hours and focus mainly on testing noise and emissions. The project team will work closely with the customer to ensure improvements based on feedback received.

"China is the perfect place to test our new machines and gain valuable customer feedback. That is why it's exciting for us to see this machine already operating at Xinyuan's site, and how it makes their employees' daily work easier and more comfortable," said Mats Sköldberg, head of technology at Volvo CE China.

Xinyuan is already enjoying the benefits of having this machine at its new plant and is glad to have this machine working at its site. As an environmentally-conscious company, the company strives to achieve zero emissions and the low noise from the machine is what it needed, accordng to the company's director of equipment management.

The Volvo EC55 Electric customer pilot excavator offers quiet and emission-free operation, supporting China's pursuit of green energy and green vehicles. It is based on its diesel-powered counterpart, the EC55D, and has been designed to deliver even better performance and controllability with the added benefits of quiet operation and zero emissions.

Since the energy running costs are 50 percent lower and the maintenance requirements simpler, the EC55 Electric also should achieve higher uptime and a lower total cost of ownership, according to the manufacturer.

"We have used local solutions to put together a competitive machine that we believe reaches a high maturity level already. By combining the technology of electrical propulsion with connectivity, we offer an attractive overall package of low noise, zero emissions, high efficiency, high uptime, reduced operating cost and reduced total cost of ownership. We have full confidence in the success of this customer pilot," Sköldberg said.

This excavator is not commercially available yet but during this research phase Volvo CE aims to mature it quickly so that it can be commercialized as soon as possible.

For more information, visit www.volvoce.com.

The team behind the development of the EC55 Electric excavator at the Volvo Technology Center in Jinan China.

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