Global Insight Perspective | |
Significance | The Swedish government is collaborating with domestic carmakers Volvo and Saab for the development of next-generation plug-in electric cars, also involving Swedish energy provider Vattenhall. |
Implications | With this initiative, Sweden hopes to break the "chicken and egg" situation which is so common with the development of new technology as it has already managed to do successfully with high-blend biofuels. |
Outlook | All eyes are on electric cars right now and there is growing interest in them especially for use in large cities, where driving is generally done at low speeds, and often for short distances, and where the improvement of air quality is a key priority. |
Sweden Turns its Focus to Electricity
The Swedish government has joined forces with its two domestic carmakers Volvo and Saab, as well as with domestic energy provider Vattenfall, Swedish battery and fuel cell specialist ETC and the Swedish Energy Agency to develop a series of plug-in hybrid electric cars. The government will invest 240 million Swedish kroner (US$39.6 million) into this project, whilst the Swedish Energy Agency will provide a further 20 million kroner in support. The aim of the project is to develop and demonstrate a fleet of ten plug-in hybrid cars that can be charged directly from a mains electricity wall socket. The project will see plug-in models from Saab and Volvo become operational—models that the manufacturers intend to make available on the market within a few years, the Swedish government said in a statement.
"We have decided to cooperate so as to speed up the development of the next generation of cars and engines. When companies, politicians and industry make a joint decision to move issues forward we can achieve better results. This can become a major and important technological advance, and one that is needed to tackle the threat of climate change," Minister for Enterprise and Energy Maud Olofsson commented in a statement. The Swedish Energy Agency said that it had decided to support the project because of the fact that Sweden is particularly suitable for the development and demonstration of plug-in hybrids as a cold climate often makes great demands on batteries.
“Within the next decade, electric vehicles are going to be needed if we are to meet forthcoming CO2 legislation," Fredrik Arp, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Volvo Car Corporation said in a statement.
Elforsk, which is the research organisation of Sweden's electricity companies, says it has calculated that if 70% of Swedish cars were to run on electricity, CO2 emissions from private cars would decrease by 80%.
Outlook and Implications
Electric vehicles (EVs) of different sorts including plug-in EVs are the source of a huge amount of interest right now, although they are also a source of great debate. While most carmakers, policy-makers and even environmentalists agree that EVs do make sense in the medium-to-long term, there has been considerable discussion about the merits of recharging cars from mains electricity in a region where the vast majority of electricity is still generated at coal-fired power stations. Critics argue that this is simply displacing the emissions from the use of the energy to its source whilst supporters point to the economies of scale that come with mass electricity production. This is because it is still far more efficient to produce electricity on a large scale all in one place, even if it is from fossil fuels, than to have lots of smaller, individual generators, whether they be cars running on fossil fuels or on batteries that do not need to be plugged in.
Another question mark over the viability of plug-in hybrids, especially in Europe, is how much sense they make in the home of the clean and efficient diesel engine. Because of the economic and manufacturing costs associated with complicated electric propulsion systems, some believe they make far more sense in regions of the world such as the United States and Japan where diesel-fuelled cars barely exist and relative CO2 emissions from road transport are correspondingly higher. Of course, even with particulate filters and other expensive after-treatment systems, diesels are still a far bigger contributor to the problem of ever-worsening air quality, than a "zero-emission" electric car would be. Furthermore, the increasing prevalence of CO2-based car taxation and the widespread introduction of congestion-charging schemes for all vehicles apart from the very lowest emitting are certainly driving demand for zero-, or extremely low-emission cars such as EVs.
What the Swedish government is attempting to do, therefore, is commendable. Sweden has long had a policy of acting decisively, instead of waiting, and is careful to "not let the best be the enemy of the good". This means not waiting for the perfect solution to come around before taking action. A prime example of this is Sweden's success in encouraging the widespread use of biofuels. In 2007, 11.5% of all new cars sold in Sweden were flex-fuel capable of running on bioethanol E85, which is a far greater proportion than any other European country has managed. Swedish carmaker Saab has now taken most of its gasoline (petrol) engines off the market in Sweden, offering flex-fuel cars and turbodiesel engines only and there are almost 1,000 filling stations in Sweden that sell bioethanol E85 now. Whether or not you are a supporter of biofuels, you cannot deny that Sweden has managed to very quickly break the "chicken and egg" scenario that inevitably hinders the take-up of new technology and fuels. At the same time, the country is investing significant sums of money into the development of second-generation biofuels. It is with this case study in mind that it should be concluded that Sweden's experimentation with plug-in electrics will also yield positive results at a time when many other countries continue to discuss the need to encourage low-emission motoring but actually do very little about it.