Asahi Beverages and Toll Group have launched what they describe as Australia’s largest single-location electric “route-to-market” heavy vehicle fleet, rolling out five battery-electric rigid trucks to service metropolitan beverage deliveries across Perth.
The fleet, operating from Asahi’s Forrestfield Distribution Centre, will use five Volvo FE electric rigid trucks to complete more than 36,000 deliveries a year, moving kegs and packaged beer, liquor and non-alcoholic beverages to bottle shops and licensed venues across the city.
Each truck has a 12-pallet tautliner body and will carry branded livery featuring Carlton Dry, Victoria Bitter and Balter, positioning the vehicles as a high-visibility shift in metro distribution.
As part of the deployment, the partners have installed three dedicated dual port 60kW DC charging stations at the Forrestfield site. Toll said the electric trucks can travel up to 270 kilometres on a single charge and will replace diesel-powered vehicles, with the fleet expected to collectively abate up to 140 tonnes of CO₂ annually, an impact it equated to removing more than 50 average family cars from the road each year.
Toll Group Retail and Consumer president, Nick Vrckovski, said the rollout builds on the companies’ “longstanding partnership” and is a step in a shared decarbonisation agenda, arguing the Perth deployment demonstrates lower-emissions transport “at scale” without compromising reliability, safety or customer requirements.
Asahi Beverages CEO, Amanda Sellers, said the electric trucks would “safely deliver our beer just like a regular diesel truck,” adding the investment “makes commercial sense” and supports the creation of “sustainable and reliable supply chains” with customers and partners.
The Perth fleet forms part of Toll’s broader $67 million investment in battery electric heavy vehicles and charging infrastructure, co-funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) through its “Driving the Nation” program.
Toll said it has recently launched electric rigids and prime movers with major grocery and beverage customers nationally, and that operational insights from the program will contribute data intended to help accelerate emissions reduction across freight, particularly in hospitality and beverage distribution where deliveries are frequent, time-sensitive and heavy.
