Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - February 2022 - 17

ELECTRIFICATION | MANUFACTURING FEATURE
Volvo Trucks will leverage experience gained through small-scale production
of battery-electric versions of its FL medium-duty and FE middleweight truck
ranges since 2019.
The company will use the same vehicle assembly techniques
for fuel-cell electric models when production of these vehicles
begins later this decade.
the joint venture, the partners plan to install and operate
1,700 high-performance, green-energy charging
points across Europe within five years of establishing
the joint venture.
Views on autonomous vehicles
Volvo is partnering with Daimler Truck and Traton Group to install and operate
high-performance, green-energy charging points across Europe.
" I compared it the other week to our nuclear reactors in Sweden
- it's the same magnitude as one of the nuclear reactors, " he said.
" Every region, every country doesn't have the capacity and the grid
to cope with this. They will be more than happy to combine this with
hydrogen refueling stations to balance out. "
Customers who purchase a Volvo truck today would be provided
with a 43-kW charger, which, as Stenqvist points out, would be dependent
on the electric infrastructure available where the customer
would seek to install it.
" We see national differences, we see regional differences, we even
see local differences, " he said. " So here we need to work very closely
with our customers, talking about what kind of permissions they
might need to obtain, giving them advice, but then also sharing our
experience of producing the FL and FE. "
Volvo's second joint venture, announced late in 2021, is also with
Daimler Truck, as well as Traton Group, the Volkswagen-owned
commercial vehicle enterprise that includes MAN and Scania. Under
TRUCK & OFF-HIGHWAY ENGINEERING
Volvo is already operating autonomous vehicles (AVs)
in confined areas such as closed quarries or mines. " If
you start with a confined area, it's rather easy to solve
the use case from a safety perspective, " said Stenqvist,
who thinks it is very likely that we will see autonomous
trucks in use in the next 20 years.
Stenqvist sees AVs passing through three phases.
First, the confined sites, then an expansion on public
roads in two phases. He describes the first phase as
" first-mile " deliveries. " For example, picking up a container
at a port terminal, transporting it 10 miles or
something like that to a logistical center, and those
shuttles driving back-and-forth, back-and-forth, " he
said. Safety would again be paramount, and operations
initially would be at low speed. Detailed mapping
could be built up around the routes and infrastructure
could be adapted if necessary.
The final phase would be on public roads. Stenqvist
acknowledged that it presents a huge engineering challenge
to achieve that degree of high-level automation,
involving detailed mapping, designated vehicle lanes,
type approval, testing and restricted operations.
" Everything we are learning in confined [sites], we
bring with us to the port terminals; everything we
learn at the port terminals, we bring with us to the
highways, " Stenqvist said. " I'm a true optimist, but it is
definitely a challenge, and we will not release anything
before we feel that it is safe. "
February 2022 17
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: VOLVO GROUP; CELLCENTRIC; DAIMLER TRUCK
Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - February 2022

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