Saab and Volvo to Partner on PHEV Pilot Program in Sweden
13 December 2007
By Jonas Lagneryd and Jack Rosebro
Miljörapporten of Stockholm is reporting that Saab and Volvo intend to collaborate on a pilot project around plug-in hybrid vehicles. The two car manufacturers will test ten Volvo PHEVs on Sweden’s public roads next year.
“We will test somewhat larger Volvo plug-in hybrids” than the Volvo C30 ReCharge PHEV concept that had been shown at Frankfurt earlier this year, said Klas Niste at Volvo Personvagnar. (Earlier post.)
Swedish energy company Vattenfall and battery manufacturer ETC Battery and Fuel Cells Sweden AB, of Nol, Sweden, are also partners in the new project. Volvo and Saab will build ten PHEVs, Vattenfall will develop and provide efficient battery chargers, and ETC Battery will contribute lithium-ion batteries.
ETC Battery is working with a LiFePO4 cathode material, with support from Energimyndigheten (the Swedish National Energy Agency) and input from Uppsala University, which is investigating and testing LiFePO4 cathode materials.
The project will continue between 2008-2010 and the ten plug-in hybrids are scheduled to be under test by 2009. Data collected during the demonstration project will be used to evaluate batteries, analyze driving patterns, and refine simulation software used for PHEV and HEV development.
Although Saab and Volvo have little to say about the project, a grant application to Energimyndigheten states the goal: “to demonstrate what a simple, marketable, full solution for plug-in hybrids would look like” and to create a Swedish market for plug-in hybrids. Asked which “larger Volvo models” are being developed with plug-in technology, Klas Niste said “This I cannot comment on.”
The cost of the project is 62 million Swedish crowns (US$9.6 million), and the partnership has applied for a government grant for half of that.
Resources
ETC's site is in Swedish, but here it is:
http://www.etcab.se/
I love their word for lithium-ion battery: Li-jonbatteriet
They also appear to be using lithium iron phosphate cathodes.
Posted by: AES | 13 December 2007 at 03:31 PM
Doesn't Volvo cars belong to Ford and Saab belong to GM? Maybe not such a bad idea to use a little grant money from another country to finance a test program. I don't know about now, but at one time Sweden had the finest roads in the world to prove a suspension, and in this case a whole PHEV, could hold up under severe road punishment.
Posted by: Lad | 13 December 2007 at 05:51 PM
Wonderful news,
before Volvo was sold to Ford they made some remarkable prototypes in the 90's. But after the affair with Ford nothing have come out from Volvo in this way, except a diesel. They have produced premium cars with high consumption of petrol.
This can be a new beginning for the engineers at Volvo and SAAB, I think there is a big potential for coming up with something extraordinary.
Posted by: MAL | 14 December 2007 at 12:19 AM
Sweden is trying to eliminate ALL fossil fuel use by 2020:
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2005/dec/policy/jp_sweden.html
So it makes sense to use the funding, and maybe any innovations can trickle into the parent companies.
Posted by: AES | 14 December 2007 at 12:59 AM
Both of SAAB and Volvo would be way ahead of the curve on green vehicles if they were not owned by GM and Ford respectively.
Alone they were unable to amortize engineering costs associated with mandatory airbags, etc. in the US market.
Funny thing was, they already had the safest cars at the time.
Posted by: John Schreiber | 14 December 2007 at 02:02 AM
demio Cinco 5th
Posted by: Cinco 5th demio | 07 May 2008 at 08:39 PM