As Volvo Group senior vice president, Patrick Collignon recently led the initiative to engineer and manufacture Mack Trucks’ medium-duty platform. Now the Belgian-born engineer with more than 30 years of commercial vehicle experience, including several years as Volvo Trucks North America COO, is forging a new path with the creation of Trova Commercial Vehicles (TrovaCV). The engineering company will offer its industrial model and manufacturing capability to other commercial vehicle Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) while at the same time seek to develop its own fully electric vehicle.
“We believe that our engineering approach will offer OEMs the opportunity to build a higher volume of electric vehicles at a lower cost,” said Collignon, who serves as TrovaCV’s CEO. “At the same time, we will utilize our chassis design experience to achieve a complete EV build design from the ground up.”
Trova means “find” in Italian, and this company’s business proposition is to use its team’s experience to help fleets select the right vehicle architecture in a quickly evolving industry with an exponentially growing number of choices. According to the Zero-Emission Technology Inventory (ZETI), the number of medium and heavy-duty zero emissions vehicles in North American will grow 78% year-over-year in 2020.
“This is an exciting time as the electric commercial vehicle market is being reshaped,” Collignon said. “While technology and innovation have made it possible to convert fuel-powered commercial vehicles into electric vehicles, we haven’t seen a production model capable of producing the required volume of fully electric commercial vehicles to meet the demand.”
The startup’s website touted its “distinctively different industrialization concept tailor-made for small to medium-size volume production” that has “proven its cost effectiveness and can compete with any large-scale manufacturing operation.”
Services will include:
- Total product cost reduction service
- Industrial and manufacturing engineering service
- Launch management
- On-site full service management
- Complete vehicle manufacturing
TrovaCV’s services can be leveraged at the original equipment manufacturer or at its own production site in southwest Virginia.
“We are excited that Trova Commercial Vehicles will launch its innovative start-up in Pulaski County,” said Brian Ball, Virginia Secretary of Commerce and Trade. “This new company will be a strong addition to the booming automotive cluster in the New River Valley, bringing automotive expertise to the niche market of electric commercial truck design and manufacturing. TrovaCV will benefit from the region’s world-class manufacturing workforce and infrastructure that contribute to Virginia’s position as a leader in the automotive industry, and we look forward to its future success.”
