In quite a welcome collaboration, Volvo Car Corporation is working with other interested parties in developing the electric vehicle of the near future. These other parties are Swedish competitor SAAB Automobile, ETC and Swedish state-owned controversial electricity supplier Vattenfall.
These vehicles are built on the premise of plug-in hybrid technology, which means normal people like us can bring home the car, pull out the extension cord and recharge, likely overnight. Fredrik Arp, who is President and CEO of Volvo said: “I see this project as a positive further development of sustainable personal transport. We have a unique opportunity to take the lead when it comes to innovations for advanced green-car technology. We want to be involved in setting up the rules for the future and to help build up broad-based competence in Sweden in this vital area.”
In the next five years Volvo is investing SEK10 billion/ €1.16 billion in developing greener ways of making cars, with emissions cutting and better fuel consumption being the primary objectives. Cars like the C30 Recharge Concept are examples.
Questions are constantly being asked though about all these new plug-in electric car concepts, the most common of which is: will we then not require more electricity in order to recharge our cars at home? If so, where will it come from? Shall we burn even more coal, or develop more nuclear power stations?
For now no one has clear-cut answers. Nevertheless companies like Volvo, in co-operation with the listed experts on their side, can hopefully find sustainable long-term solutions.
Together with electricity provider Vattenfall, Saab Automobile, ETC and the Swedish state, Volvo Car Corporation is launching a joint broad-based research venture to develop spearhead technology in the area of plug-in hybrid cars. Sweden will be the arena for the field tests.
“I see this project as a positive further development of sustainable personal transport. We have a unique opportunity to take the lead when it comes to innovations for advanced green-car technology,” says Fredrik Arp, President and CEO of Volvo Car Corporation.
The aim of the project, which is being carried out jointly by Volvo Car Corporation, Saab Automobile, Vattenfall and ETC, is to develop and demonstrate the next-generation hybrid cars. A fleet of 10 plug-in hybrids will be produced that can be recharged directly from the mains wall socket.
Volvo has long experience of cooperation with a variety of society’s actors and with this project the company aims to participate in and shape decisions and initiatives that are taken both within and outside the car industry.
“We want to be involved in setting up the rules for the future and to help build up broad-based competence in Sweden in this vital area,” says Fredrik Arp.
Over a five-year period, Volvo will invest just over 11 billion SEK in development aimed at reducing fuel consumption and emissions. Volvo already offers its customers one of the industry’s widest ranges of Flexifuel engines. In parallel the company is continuing to enhance the efficiency of its petrol- and diesel-powered cars. 2008 will see the launch of car models that release less than 120 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre.
Volvo is also focusing intensively on hybrid technology. In the medium term the company will introduce hybrid variants where an electric motor supports the combustion engine. In the longer term, plug-in hybrids will be introduced. One example of this was presented in autumn 2007 with the Volvo C30 ReCharge Concept. Used in the most effective way, this concept car cuts emissions of carbon dioxide by about 65 percent compared with the hybrid cars available on the market today. And if the electricity comes from CO2-sustainable sources such as hydropower and windpower, this figure improves still further.
“Within the next decade, electric vehicles are going to be needed if we are to meet forthcoming CO2 legislation,” says Fredrik Arp.
