Scania & MAN Truck & Bus – Video
Scania’s response to the need for more sustainable, electrically-powered transport solutions entails several different areas of research, demonstrations and pilot projects. Each one reduces the use of fossil fuels and noise pollution.
With our electrification roadmap, Scania is taking a multi-faceted approach, including research into different kinds of bio-fuelled hybrid technologies, and fully-electric vehicles.
The electrified road
Since June 2016, a two-kilometre strip of the E16 motorway has been in operation outside the Swedish city of Gävle. There, Scania trucks are fitted with a Siemens pantograph power collector that is mounted on the frame behind its cab. The pantographs are in turn connected to overhead power lines that are above the right-hand lane of the road. The trucks can freely connect to and disconnect from the overhead wires while in motion and charge the batteries in the trucks that are equipped with an electric hybrid powertrain. Trucks powered by electricity are capable of reducing fossil fuel emissions by 80 to 90 percent.
Battery electric buses
Scania has started its first field tests of battery electric buses in the northern Swedish city of Östersund. Two charging stations will supply six buses at both ends of the city’s 14-kilometre major bus line. With 10-minute charging, buses will run every 15 minutes for a total of 100 journeys each day.
Hydrogen fuel-cell technology
A major strength of hydrogen-based solutions is the fact that it is a zero-emission technology; only water is actually emitted locally by the truck itself. The hydrogen is produced in a renewable way.
The trucks, which are fully electric, are fitted with an electric powertrain, and energy is converted to electricity from hydrogen gas in fuel cells on board the vehicles. The fuel cell-powered truck also has a battery for moments when extra power is needed, and when the vehicle needs to recuperate electric power from brake energy.
Partnerships key to sustainable transport
Partnerships are another key ingredient in the mix when it comes to meeting the challenges of developing truly sustainable transport.
Scania currently works with a series of interested parties to find viable sustainable transport solutions, including municipalities, academia, customers, customers’ customers, other industry players, infrastructure suppliers as well as fuel and energy providers.
Future transport is intelligent, networked and automated: Innovative truck concepts set completely new standards regarding safety and efficiency in freight transport. The road to autonomously driving trucks is paved by our pilot projects, as for example the test run of the MAN platooning technology
and the driverless MAN safety vehicle. Both concepts use the latest technologies for networking and automatic vehicle control to further mitigate the risk of accidents and increase cost effectiveness in road traffic.