Sweden Announces “Unlimited Range” EV Highway

The electric road- one that charges electric cars and trucks as the drive across it- is often seen as the Holy Grail of EV adoption. Eliminate range anxiety utterly, the argument goes, and we’ll reach a tipping point for all things electric. Well, we’ll soon see if that’s how this thing is going to play out, because the Swedish government has just unveiled a 1.2-mile long stretch with an integrated electrical rail that charges a fleet of custom-designed, pass-through trucks using the truck’s movable arm. And you haven’t even heard the best part about this road: it’s fully operational.

“The technology offers infinite range — range anxiety disappears,” said Gunnar Ashland, CEO of Elways, in a statement. But he goes on to talk about some unexpected benefits, as well. “Electrified roads will allow smaller batteries and (therefor) can make electric cars even cheaper than fossil fuel ones.”

“Such roads will allow (electric vehicles) to move long distances without big, costly and heavy batteries,” said Markus Fischer, a spokesperson for state-owned energy company Vattenfall. “The investment cost per kilometer is estimated to be less than that of using overhead lines, as is the impact on the landscape.”

For now, dedicated carrying trucks are running on the track, shuttling to and from Arlanda airport to a logistics center on-site. If it keeps on keeping on and the system proves durable enough, it’s expected to make its way to main commercial arteries by the end of the decade.

eRoad Arlanda | Concept Video

Source | Images: AutoGuide, via Swedespeed.

AUTONOMOUS TRUCKS WILL HIT SWEDEN’S ROADS LATER THIS YEAR

Swedish tech startup Einride does not have the fame (or government subsidies) that Tesla has, nor the experience in car manufacturing of established automobile brands like Volvo. Yet, if the company succeeds in carrying out its ambitions, it is going to have a driverless truck in operation way before any of the established carmakers do. No less importantly, it will have an electric drivetrain.

There are solid reasons to believe Einride is not merely boosting its progress to lure investors. The best signifier is that it has partnered up with multinational grocery behemoth Lidl. Last October, Einride released a statement explaining how it is going to support Lidl in its transition towards electric and autonomous transport. The supermarket chain has a goal of reducing its emissions by 40% in Sweden by 2035. The company already switched to lower-emission fuels such as biodiesel, but now wants to go all the way down to zero. That’s where Einride comes in.

Founded in 2016, Einride has developed the T-pod, an electric truck that is not just able to operate autonomously, but does not even feature a driver’s seat. Without the cabin, more space is left for the drivetrain and freight. Powered by a 200 KWh battery, it can cover approximately 125 miles or 200 km on a single charge. Over that distance, it has space for 15 standard pallets, equal to 160 sq ft or 15 m2. Its maximum weight will be around 20 tons, and it will be sold at roughly $150,000 per unit.

The company plans to start a pilot program using the T-pod by the third quarter of 2018. The vehicle will be driving around the city of Halmstad on the Swedish west coast, carrying actual Lidl products and driving through actual Swedish traffic. However, at first the T-pod will be monitored at a distance by a human driver, ready to take over the wheel when required. Total autonomy, at least at the start of the pilot, not yet been reached, but Einride plans to slowly decrease human involvement, going from 1 to 10 trucks per remote driver.

Einride Electric, Autonomous Commercial Truck

Still, the T-pod makes for an interesting proposition. As long as the distance is not too large, companies can now operate a vehicle at eventually drastically lower labor costs. Additionally, the maintenance and fuel costs associated with wielding a traditional combustion engine are eliminated.

Furthermore, the T-pod is to be conceived of as one cog in a much larger wheel. Using a network of hubs from which the pods operate, the 200 km range suffices to sustain a huge, highly automated logistics system.

As Einride’s own timeline indicates, we are still some time away from large scale adoption of autonomous, electric trucking. By 2020, the company wants to have built 200 vehicles, and this might turn out to be rather ambitious for a firm that, by then, will exist less than 5 years. But looking into the longer term, Einride has bolder plans. It aims to have 40% of Swedish road transport carried out by its own vehicles as of 2035. That is optimistic, given the advancement competing car brands will have made. Production of Tesla’s Semi for example, a highly autonomous electric truck, is slated to start in 2019. Einride is still a company to keep a close eye on. If it manages to fulfill its promise and gets its autonomous electric truck into commercial operation before the end of this year, it does have a strong position to take up larger swaths of the trucking market in the near future.

By Rogier van Rooij, originally published by Cleantechnica

Sweden Leading The Way To A Fossil Fuel Free Future

Ahead of the Global Climate Change summit that begins in Paris on November 30, Sweden has announced its Fossil Fuel Free Sweden program, which seeks to see the entire nation transition away from fossil fuels by the year 2030. Sweden is also challenging other nations to follow its lead. By doing so, it is following the advice of Tesla’s Elon Musk, who said last spring that burning fossil fuels was the “dumbest experiment in history.”

In an article in The Guardian, Åsa Romson, member of the Green party and deputy premier of Sweden, set forth her country’s case for going fossil fuel free. She says that doing so will cost about 5% more than the investments in infrastructure and urban development all nations must make anyway. That increase will be more than offset by the amount of money saved by using lower cost renewable energy and the new employment opportunities green technologies will create. A recent study by the Club of Rome predicts that “going green” will add 100,000 new jobs in Sweden alone.  Add to that the reduction in health care costs from the decline in air, water and land pollution and the overall economic benefits are enormous.

“Sweden has positive experience of combining emissions reductions with an improved economy and welfare. For many years we have used effective policy levers that put a price on carbon, using a carbon dioxide tax accompanied by political leadership that supports the emergence of climate-smart innovations. This has resulted in reduced emissions and market-based solutions while our economy has grown,” Romson says.

She says the Swedish business community is firmly behind the fossil fuel free initiative. “In Sweden, the business sector, local authorities and other stakeholders are coming together through the Fossil-free Sweden initiative and jointly issuing a challenge to their counterparts around the world. Swedish companies including ABB, IKEA, H&M and Ericsson…..are supporting the initiative and themselves contributing to reduced emissions. Fuel company Preem, which operates petrol stations throughout Sweden, has decided to only offer renewable fuels at its pumps by 2030. The Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund will invest its entire SEK200bn portfolio in low-carbon strategies within five years.”

Sweden’s position is exactly opposite to that of many Congressional Republicans, who have already warned President Obama that they will reject any US commitments made in Paris that will cost one nickel of taxpayer money. That’s despite the fact the the US and other nations spend trillions of dollars a year for subsidies ladled out to fossil fuel industries. Let the seas rise and the heavens rage until every last barrel and ton of fossil fuel has been wrested from the earth. Let our rivers run black with coal sludge. Let out atmosphere poison untold millions, just so long as the people who make a profit from fossil fuels can continue padding their already bloated bank accounts.

If the key to climate change is political leadership, the United States will remain in thrall to fossil fuel polluters in perpetuity. Many of our representatives are perfectly happy to sell the rest of us down the (heavily polluted) river, so long as their benefactors keep doling out campaign cash. America has the best government money can buy, some say, and there seems to be much truth in that statement.

Since leadership from our elected leaders is not forthcoming, it is up to We The People to decide what is in our mutual best interest. If the people will lead, their leaders will follow — reluctantly.

Scania receives large order for biofuel buses in Sweden - Press Release

Scania has received an order for 158 buses from public transport company Keolis Sverige. By ordering buses that run on biofuels, the company strengthens its position in sustainable urban transport.

Enlarge photo

Keolis Scania ethanol bus

Ethanol is the most cost-effective bio fuel in the market in terms of availability, infrastructure and access to tried-and-tested technology

The delivery to Keolis consists of urban, suburban and intercity buses. The majority, 123 urban and suburban buses, will be used in the greater Stockholm area, where Keolis operates for Storstockholms Lokaltrafik (SL).

“The order is very important to us and helps strengthen our position as a strong partner in the public transport industry,” says Ove Forsberg, Bus Sales Manager at Scania-Bilar Sverige. “We have had a rewarding partnership with Keolis in Sweden for a long period, and we see this order as a result of that.”

Scania has previously delivered ethanol- and biogas-fuelled vehicles to Keolis, and the new buses will be equipped with engines for the renewable fuels ethanol and rapeseed methyl ester (RME). Compared to using a conventional diesel engine, Keolis reduces carbon-dioxide emissions by 70 percent by using ethanol; for RME, the corresponding figure is 64 percent.

Deliveries of the buses will take place from April until July, and the buses will start operating between June and August.

Keolis Sverige’s vision is to use locally suited, sustainable transport to double transit ridership in Swedish cities. By the second half of 2011 Keolis’ vehicle fleet in Sweden will consist of approximately 2,000 buses, of which over 60 percent will be running on renewable fuels.

Keolis’ Technology and Environmental Director Håkan Björk says, “This and previous large orders to Scania are a result of a close cooperation, giving us well-developed and customised products for our operations.”

Scania has more than 20 years of experience with ethanol buses, having delivered a total of about 800 ethanol buses. More than 700 of them have gone to Swedish cities, but the company has also delivered ethanol buses for commercial service to countries such as Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Norway.

The world's largest fleet of ethanol buses operates in the greater Stockholm area, where Stockholm County Council has set the goal that at least 50 percent of all passenger traffic will employ renewable fuels by 2012.

Ethanol accounts for around 90 percent of renewable vehicle fuels available today. It is the most cost-effective such fuel in the market in terms of availability, infrastructure and access to tried-and-tested technology

For further information, please contact:

· Leif Nyström, Marketing Director, Scania-Bilar Sverige, +46 8 553 511 52
· Hans-Åke Danielsson, Press Manager, Scania, +46 8 553 856 62

Scania is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of trucks and buses for heavy transport applications, and of industrial and marine engines. A growing proportion of the company’s operations consists of products and services in the financial and service sectors, assuring Scania customers of cost-effective transport solutions and maximum uptime. Employing some 32,000 people, Scania operates in about 100 countries. Research and development activities are concentrated in Sweden, while production takes place in Europe and South America, with facilities for global interchange of both components and complete vehicles. In 2009, net sales totalled SEK 62 billion and net income amounted to SEK 1.1 billion. Scania press releases are available on www.scania.com (http://www.scania.com/)