Volvo Cars and Vattenfall Partner for Electrification
A Volvo that can be fuelled with electricity from a standard wall socket will be a reality in 2012. Swedish energy company Vattenfall and Volvo Car Corp. (VCC) have launched an industrial joint venture partnership to introduce plug-in hybrids to the marketplace. The groundbreaking technology will considerably lower the environmental impact from traffic and owning a plug-in hybrid will be convenient since you can fuel up at home and fuel costs are significantly lower.
In January 2007, Volvo Cars and Vattenfall launched a joint project with the aim of testing and developing plug-in technology. Now their cooperation is being taken to the next level.
“We are investing in an industrial joint venture to series-produce plug-in hybrid cars in Sweden in 2012, cars that can be powered by both electricity and diesel. This is an important business development for us and our partnership with Vattenfall allows us to take a giant step toward offering our customers cars with an even smaller environmental footprint,” said Stephen Odell, president and CEO of VCC.
Vattenfall and VCC believe that series production of plug-in hybrid cars and the development of an infrastructure can generate new jobs and help Sweden maintain its position at the cutting edge of advanced environmental technology.
One of the major benefits of plug-in hybrids is that they can be charged from a regular household wall socket. The development of the cars is being carried out and financed jointly by the two companies. VCC will manufacture the cars and Vattenfall will develop charging systems and supply the cars with electricity.
The plug-in hybrid cars will be driven by a powerful electric motor fuelled by a lithium-ion battery. The battery takes about five hours to charge from a standard wall socket, and the battery is also charged every time the car’s brakes are applied.
During this summer, three Volvo V70 demonstration cars will be used to gather information about the demands that drivers may have on the new technology, to determine their driving habits and to establish how they want to charge their cars.
While a date has not yet been set for the plug-in hybrids to come to the U.S. market, it is important to understand that Volvo is taking the first steps toward electrification.
