Tevva, a British electric truck manufacturer, has raised $51m, filings on Companies House show. The company confirmed the figure to Sifted.

The new funding comes after a $57m round in November last year, and brings Tevva’s total funding to $140m.

It’s the latest raise in the growing electric trucking industry, where a clamour of startups are competing to secure partnerships with the big hauling firms and get their trucks out onto the road. 

In 2021, 346 electric truck designs were registered in Europe, a 193% increase on 2020’s figure.

Converting the trucking industry to electric will mean big emissions savings. It’s estimated that international freight transport accounts for more than 7% of global emissions.

Tevva’s plans

Tevva says the latest cash will go towards getting its 7.5 tonne all-electric truck into production from Q3 this year, as well as developing its 7.5 tonne hydrogen-electric truck.

Tevva has had its first generation electric truck on the road since 2019, in a partnership with UPS. It’s also working on a 12-tonne truck, expected to be launched in 2023, and a 19 tonne hydrogen-electric truck, forecast for 2024.

Tevva’s move to hydrogen will help it get around one of the central dilemmas facing the EV truck industry, Asher Bennett, Tevva’s founder, told Sifted in March this year. Companies want to increase the range of their vehicles but that means sacrificing cargo space to include a bigger battery. 

Tevva’s answer is to use hydrogen as a range extender — to charge up the battery should it run out of electric power. Hydrogen is expensive, but Bennett says using it as a backup source means only a small amount is needed to top up the battery and significantly improve the vehicle’s range. 

Tevva is also interested in the possibility of autonomous trucks, Bennett said. “The truck might go off and do a few autonomous deliveries,” — something he says is fully within the capabilities of today’s AI tech.

The competitors

In Europe, there are three main competitors to Tevva: Einride, Volta Trucks and Arrival.

Swedish company Einride was the first to get an electric truck on public roads. It launched the “Einride Pod” in 2019 and has secured partnerships with companies like Coca Cola. It also launched a truck in 2020 that has been used by companies like Oatly. 

Volta Trucks — one of Sifted’s climate tech soonicorns — is also Swedish. It has designed a 16-tonne truck and plans to deliver it to customers across this year and next. 

Volta is also working on three new variants of the 16-tonne truck — projected to be ready for 2025 — and 12-tonne and 7.5-tonne vehicles, expected to be ready in late 2024. 

In Europe, there’s also Arrival, based in the UK. Arrival listed on the Nasdaq in 2020 via a SPAC, with a $13bn valuation. Arrival’s working on two vehicles at present — a delivery van and a cargo van — and told Sifted it will begin production in Q3 this year.

There’s also a lot of EV truck activity in the US. Tesla announced its Cybertruck in 2019 — it’s forecast to go into full scale production at the end of this year. 

Rivian, another US company, is building an electric SUV, a pickup truck and an electric delivery van, built as part of a partnership with Amazon. 

The US is also home to Nikola, an electric truck maker that was hit by scandal when its founder was charged with making a series of false claims that portrayed the company as closer to releasing a functional truck than it was. 

Established car brands are also working on electric trucks. Ford plans to bring out its F-150 Lightning pickup truck later this year, and Volvo has already developed an electric lorry. 

Freya Pratty is a reporter at Sifted. She tweets from @FPratty and writes our sustainability-focused newsletter — you can sign up here.