In a step toward a greener future, Sweden has launched the first ever electric highway system on a public road.
The use of fossil fuels has been causing damage to the environment, and cargo transportation through trucks has been one of the worst offenders. One-third of the carbon dioxide emissions in Sweden is caused by transportation, with half of that coming from freight transport.
This fact has led to the partnership between Siemens and truck manufacturer Scania to create an electric highway system, which will now undergo testing.
The system will be tested over the next two years along the 1.25-mile stretch that it covers in a public highway located to the north of the country's capital, Stockholm. Similar to an electrified railroad, the distance covered by the system will feature overhead wires that hybrid trucks can connect to through connectors equipped at the top of the vehicles.
The specialized trucks to be used for the electric highway have sensors which check for the presence of the overhead wires. Once detected, the truck releases a connector known as a pantograph, either automatically or manually by the driver.
Once a pantograph-equipped truck is connected to the system's wires, the driver can deactivate the truck's combustion engine and instead use the electricity offered by the system to move forward. The connection will charge the truck's battery while it is moving, but it will also see excess energy being fed back to the overhead wires and into the energy system, with the power to be used by other trucks that will be traveling through the electric highway.
Once the electric highway ends, the driver can simply restart the truck's engine to continue the trip.
According to Siemens Mobility Division chief engineer Roland Edel, the system will be able to both cut energy consumption by half and reduce air pollution. Claes Erixon, an official for Scania, added that the testing is an important milestone in the quest toward fossil fuel-free transportation, with it being the culmination of a project that took two years to develop.
Siemens is also currently developing to bring an electric highway in California, this time through a partnership with Volvo. The testing of the project will run through next year, with the companies looking to figure out the interactions of different truck configurations along Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Another recently reported initiative to reduce the fossil fuels burned by trucks is that of Nikola Motor, which is looking to be the Tesla Motors of trucks. Its first concept, the Nikola One, features a range of up to 1,200 miles on a single charge, which will cost half compared with the fuel needed to power a combustion-engine powered truck over the same distance.
