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Customer LoginsNew road for testing electric trucks opened in Sweden
Sweden has inaugurated a stretch of road that has been set up to test the use of a pantograph to supply electricity to a hybrid electric truck. According to a statement, the test area is 2-km stretch on the E16 road in Sandviken (Sweden) that is equipped with posts 60 metres apart that hold up electric lines over one of the lanes. The test stretch uses technology similar to a light rail, with contact lines 5.4 metres over the roadway. A rest area has a transformer to supply a low-voltage direct current feed. The project uses a Scania G 360 truck that has a parallel hybrid powertrain using a 5kWh lithium-ion battery, 130kW electric motor and a 13-litre 360hp biofuel engine. The battery offers 3km range when not running on the electric road, and the conductor can connect to the supply automatically at speeds up to 90 km/h.
Significance: Electrification is something that has been increasingly looked at by automakers as part of their efforts to cut emissions. However, for medium and heavy commercial vehicles (MHCVs), the technology has to be balanced with gross vehicle weights and the impact that it has on the payload. The "electric road" allows a vehicle to work in zero-emission mode without relying on a large battery pack. The testing of vehicles is currently being done off-road, although this will now be able to be done in full traffic and tests will continue into 2018. The project has received investments of about SEK77 million (USD9.3 million) in public financing along with about SEK48 million in co-financing from the business community and the Gävleborg region. Similar technology is also being tested in the United States by Volvo Group and Siemens (see United States: 8 August 2014: Siemens, Volvo Group to trial eHighway overhead catenary system for electric trucks in California).
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The above article is from IHS Automotive Same-Day Analysis of automotive news, events and trends, and is a deliverable of the World Markets Automotive Service. The service averages thirty stories per day and also provides competitor and country intelligence. Get a free trial.