Opening up a battlefield in the EV space, Volkswagen just received a massive order of 1,600 all-electric trucks from Brazilian brewery Ambev. The order is so huge that the German automaker is looking to sell a stake in its used-car portal, Heycar, to Daimler in order to meet expense requirements.
German newspaper Handelsblatt reported that Daimler is looking for a 20% stake in Heycar, which has around 300,000 cars on offer. Heycar, founded last October, contends with mobile.de and Autoscout.24.
The electric trucks, which give 124 miles range on a single charge with the 170 kWh battery pack, will probably be manufactured at Volkswagen’s Brazilian division.
Ambev plans to convert one-third of its delivery lineup by 2023 and the order could help the company meet the ample delivery routes.
Volkswagen also plans to produce its own ‘VW e-Delivery’ trucks by 2020, while the delivery to Ambev will start by the end of this year. This will be one of Volkswagen’s first electric trucks.
On Monday, the German automaker recalled 700,000 SUVs over short-circuit risks. The Tiguan and Touran models made before July 5 this year reportedly caused short circuits when the sunroofs became wet.
This comes after the recall of 124,000 Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche electric cars over carcinogenic cadmium used in their batteries in late July.
Related: Apple turns to Volkswagen for driverless cars
Pressure has been mounting on Volkswagen ever since Apple (AAPL) partnered with it to make self-driving cars. Apple is reportedly planning to change Volkswagen T6 Transporter vans into autonomous vehicles.
The partnership came after BMW and Mercedes-Benz withdrew from discussions as they were not interested in giving over the control of the design and data to Apple.