They build the future
Hybrid technology developers at Scania’s research department in Södertälje are working at full speed to create the sustainable transport solutions of tomorrow − mixing idealism with commercial thinking in a creative melting pot.
Photo: Carl-Erik Andersson
A series hybrid is always propelled by an electric motor. This means, explains Anders Folkesson, that its combustion engine can be placed anywhere in the vehicle.
TEXT: PER-OLA KNUTAS
The Scania Technical Centre in Södertälje is known colloquially as “the Mountain,” due to its high position on the mountainside overlooking the Scania Head Office and manufacturing facilities. On the third floor in one of the buildings Anders Folkesson and his colleagues meet every morning to discuss their particular development project: hybrid buses.
Hybrid buses – a reality
The team comprises some 10 engineers with different backgrounds – Swedish specialists in chemical engineering, engineering physics and measurement and control, a bus developer from Denmark and a high-voltage expert from Germany.They all are working toward the same concrete goal, visible on a timetable that covers a whole wall of their project room: to ensure that early in 2009 Scania buses featuring hybrid technology will begin operating on the streets of Stockholm in a field test for SL, the Swedish capital’s regional public transport company.
All members of the team are clearly proud, saying that they feel like an important part of Scania’s future − and the world’s, for that matter.
Hybrid technology for a better world
“My personal motivation is fairly idealistic,” says Folkesson, who recently finished his Scania-sponsored doctoral studies specialised in alternative powertrains. “I feel I’m contributing to a better world.”Christian Hedegaard Gravesen, from Denmark, who has pursued hybrid research for 10 years, says development engineers are often so passionate about their research that project goals also become very personal.
“My goal, and the project’s, is to develop a commercially viable bus that will show the true potential of hybrid technology,” he says.
Improve fuel economy
In the wake of the climate change debate, there is intense interest in the team’s research and in solutions based on hybrid technology, which can improve fuel economy in urban traffic by some 25 percent.“We have enjoyed an extremely positive response since we displayed our hybrid technology concept bus in Helsinki in the spring of 2007,” Folkesson says. “Now we are visited by so many transport operators from around the world that we almost have to turn them away.”
The development team is convinced that hybrid buses and trucks are part of the transport sector’s future.
Hybrid technology is part of the future
“Most future vehicles will be hybridised to some extent,” says Magnus Neuman, another Scania-sponsored doctoral student specialising in powertrains. “What we are doing now is providing a platform for these vehicles.”The development team describes its job as a combination of day-to-day tasks and a continuous polishing of details. But it also involves creating unique conditions for creative thinking.
“You can’t schedule creativity,” says Folkesson. “It requires a preparation. You get the most creative discussions when you shut yourself off from daily chores together for a couple of days.”
Interest in sustainable transports
A deep knowledge of details and a talent for free, innovative thinking are a necessary combination for a good development engineer, the team concurs. “You have to be genuinely interested in technology, of course,” says Hedegaard Gravesen. “But you also have to be able to quickly zoom out and in, from the big picture to a microscopic view.”André Claesson, a control systems expert, adds: “And you can’t be too insular. You have to be able to interpret the wishes of the market, too.”
Early in 2009 when the field-testing starts, the world will be able to view the work of the team and the results of a decade of Scania hybrid technology at close hand. Will the technology work? Folkesson says he is not worried.
“At Scania we’re conservative, which also means that we’re thorough,” he says. “We’re building a robust solution that works in the real world, not a prototype. We are also combining the new hybrid technology with our long-standing experience of ethanol engines, which means that on top of the 25 percent saving from the hybrid system, carbon dioxide emissions will be cut by up to 90 percent.”
2,400 people at R&D
- Scania invests 4 percent of sales in research and development. Of this activity, 95 percent takes place at Scania’s Technical Centre in Södertälje.
- Research is organised into 128 main projects within three different processes: existing vehicles, problem-solving and future vehicles.
- In electric hybrid technology, Scania pursues development work with series hybrid and parallel hybrid technology. Today hybrid research involves some 30 fulltime employees
