help the city of Gothenburg become climate-neutral by 2030, Volvo Cars are set to test new technologies in the area as part of an initiative called Gothenburg Green City Zone.
The Green City Zone initiative begins in spring 2021 and will be gradually scaled up. The aim is to establish an area that is completely emission-free, with a variety of climate-neutral transportation modes and a connected infrastructure.
Volvo has stated that it sees many benefits to using a real city as a testing ground, including an accelerated development of technologies and services in the areas of electrification, shared mobility, autonomous driving, connectivity, and safety.
Henrik Green, chief technology officer at Volvo Cars explained: “We want to use our knowledge and technology to help create a future city that is electrified, connected, shared and climate-neutral”
“This is an opportunity to lead by example; by testing new technologies and services in a live large-scale environment, we can show that if it is possible here, it is possible anywhere”.
Examples of technologies to be tested include geo-fencing so that cars in the zone operate in electric-only mode and remain within speed limits, as well as traffic infrastructure that can connect to active safety features in cars and share information between road users.
Volvo also wants to test ‘fully electric mobility hubs’, an easy-to-use charging network for EVs, but this is a future endeavour.
“Essentially, we are initiating a project that intends to limit the number of cars in the city, which is fully in line with our company’s purpose,” said Håkan Samuelsson, chief executive of Volvo Cars.
“This is already proven by our investment in the shared mobility service M, who have developed proprietary AI technology to improve efficiency and utilisation.
“We want to be involved in creating the cities of the future and keep them liveable. This initiative gives us an opportunity to do that and take on responsibility in our own hometown at the same time”.
Volvo believes that the biggest obstacle to climate transition is not a lack of climate-friendly and smart technologies, but the capacity to implement them.
However, since Volvo has an active role in the planning process of the Gothenburg Green City Zone initiative, it says it will be able to make sure that the zone integrates its electrified mobility services and develops them in a live environment, increasing the impact on sustainability goals.
