Zero-Emission Trucks: Episode 1 – Politics meets the industry
Kicking off the #ZeroEmissionTrucks video series, Christian Levin, President and CEO of Scania Group, and Karl-Petter Thorwaldsson, Swedish Minister for Business, Industry and Innovation, exchange views on ways to reach a zero-emission road transport sector.
“I think from my perspective, it’s all about the planet. It’s all about getting rid of the carbon dioxide that our industry is emitting. So, of course, we need to be part of the solution,” said Mr Levin.
Truck manufacturers are fully committed to the decarbonisation of transport. The industry is offering a growing range of low- and zero-emission vehicles, which are now entering the market with a massive growth rate.
“The challenge going forward is to make sure that our customers – the transporters, the logistics companies – can take the risk and switch from fossil platforms over to zero-emission platforms,” added Mr Levin.
“I doubt that many people know that you can do most of the last mile for transport into city centres with battery powered trucks. That is an amazing development,” confirmed Minister Thorwaldsson. “Politics must now follow your development. And it must be economically beneficial also for consumers and for customers to change to the new technology,” he added.
But getting transport operators to embrace this shift requires that the right framework conditions are in place. It must be economically viable, and the adequate infrastructure must become widely available and accessible.
“And here we of course talk about completely different charging stations,” warned Mr Levin. “They need to be up to one megawatt. Then of course if the vehicles are bigger, we need to separate the infrastructure,” he concluded.
All stakeholders and policy makers must now work together to develop the charging infrastructure necessary to facilitate this transition.
The challenge going forward is to make sure that transport operators and logistics companies can take the risk and switch to #ZeroEmissionTrucks.
