The headline in Miljo Rapporten, Sweden's largest news publication,
says it all:

Saab och Volvo i stort plugin-bilprojek
http://www.miljorapporten.se/article.jsp?article=21172

If your Swedish isn't up to speed, here's the report/translation in
Green Car Congress

Saab and Volvo to Partner on PHEV Pilot Program in Sweden
13 December 2007
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/12/saab-and-volvo.html
By Jonas Lagneryd and Jack Rosebro

[NOTE: It's not often that you see a joint project between Ford
(which owns Volvo, which has demonstrated a concept PHEV) and GM
(which owns Saab). The Swedish government was a major sponsor of the
conference we attended in Iceland on Driving Sustainability that
focused heavily on plug-in cars http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/861.html .]


Milj-rapporten of Stockholm is reporting that Saab and Volvo intend
to collaborate on a pilot project around plug-in hybrid vehicles. The
two car manufacturers will test ten Volvo PHEVs on Sweden's public
roads next year.

"We will test somewhat larger Volvo plug-in hybrids" than the Volvo
C30 ReCharge PHEV concept that had been shown at Frankfurt earlier
this year, said Klas Niste at Volvo Personvagnar. (Earlier post.)

Swedish energy company Vattenfall and battery manufacturer ETC
Battery and Fuel Cells Sweden AB, of Nol, Sweden, are also partners
in the new project. Volvo and Saab will build ten PHEVs, Vattenfall
will develop and provide efficient battery chargers, and ETC Battery
will contribute lithium-ion batteries.

ETC Battery is working with a LiFePO4 cathode material, with support
from Energimyndigheten (the Swedish National Energy Agency) and input
from Uppsala University, which is investigating and testing LiFePO4
cathode materials.

The project will continue between 2008-2010 and the ten plug-in
hybrids are scheduled to be under test by 2009. Data collected during
the demonstration project will be used to evaluate batteries, analyze
driving patterns, and refine simulation software used for PHEV and
HEV development.

Although Saab and Volvo have little to say about the project, a grant
application to Energimyndigheten states the goal: "to demonstrate
what a simple, marketable, full solution for plug-in hybrids would
look like" and to create a Swedish market for plug-in hybrids. Asked
which "larger Volvo models" are being developed with plug-in
technology, Klas Niste said "This I cannot comment on."

The cost of the project is 62 million Swedish crowns (US$9.6
million), and the partnership has applied for a government grant for
half of that.

Resources: ETC Battery and Fuel Cells Sweden AB: Hybrid Vehicle Batteries

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Felix Kramer fkramer@...
Founder California Cars Initiative
http://www.calcars.org
http://www.calcars.org/news-archive.html
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --