Auto Channel

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.