The headline on Scania’s press release for IAA 2022, read ‘Scania decarbonises heavy transport’ in what seemed to be a sort of declaration that the Traton-owned brand was going to save the planet almost single handed.
However anyone who was observing or was at the massive transport expo in Hannover this would have realised that the Swedish truck maker wasn’t alone in its mission, it was an all pervasive theme of the show. Every truck maker is on a road to decarbonising.
So in reality Scania’s headline was almost a statement of the bleeding obvious.
Scania chief Christian Levin declared again at Hannover that the company manifests the future of transport with sustainable and electric trucks.
Levin said that by 2030, 50 per cent of total vehicle sales volume is expected to be electrified, in what was the preamble to the unveiling of its new electrified prime mover for regional transport operations.
Levin said that Scania’s purpose is to drive the shift to a sustainable transport system heading for 100 per cent electric transport.
The company displayed 14 trucks, and unlike its Swedish counterpart Volvo, Scania showed some diesel powered trucks on the stand. However the display was mostly electric and encompassed a range of vehicles for most applications.
“In our electrification journey, we are leaving city limits behind us and heading onto intercity motorways and we have recently delivered an electrified timber truck to a customer in northern Sweden,” said Levin.
“That is a very real token of the fact that we now can electrify all heavy transport applications,” Levin, said.
Scania said that it is preparing for megawatt charging to charge trucks for 45 minutes to deliver an additional 4.5 hours of travel to enable the long-distance electric motorway transport.
“In the coming years, the electrified share of Scania’s vehicles will grow significantly,” he said.
“At Scania we are working to decarbonise across scopes, from our industrial operation to our products when they are in use, and when measuring our climate impact we are always taking the well-to-wheel perspective, also factoring in the origin of the energy used,” Levin said.
“Through our science based carbon reduction targets, there are clear goals for and defined priority areas for achieving these.
“As we ramp up vehicles with zero tailpipe emissions we are increasingly focusing on other sources of emissions and Scania once again shows the way by setting the most ambitious supply chain decarbonisation targets in our industry,” Levin added.
“We’ve identified four “hotspots” – batteries, steel, aluminium and cast iron – which together account for more than 80 per cent of carbon emission emanating from the supply chain and by 2030 we will cut emissions from these hotspots with 60-85 per cent,” he said.
As far as diesel is concerned, the Swedish truck maker showed its ‘Scania Super’ engine, the new and final internal combustion powertrain, which it claims delivers fuel savings that typically will reach eight per cent for long-haulage customers.
“We can hereby both deliver on our decarbonising targets and create value for our customers and this new powertrain will be demonstrated in several vehicles at IAA,” the Scania Group boss declared.
“Driving this shift entails assisting customers in taking steps towards transitioning to electric fleets and therefore, a complete system of services are on display at IAA, ranging from analyses to complete charging solutions.
“Going forward, we offer a total turnkey solution for our electrified customers. A solution that is scalable for the future. There are no longer any excuses not to start the transition to zero-emission vehicles,” concluded Levin.
Despite the fact that Scania has recently quietly and belatedly embraced a potential hydrogen fuel cell future in the past few weeks, alongside its long espoused battery electric pathway, no mention was made of its new found hydrogen embrace at the company’s presentation on the opening press day for IAA.
This was backed up by its sibling MAN across the aisle, where its boss Alexander Vlaskamp ruled out H2 drivetrains and declared that battery electric was that brand’s only way forward in the short term, explaining that H2 was too expensive and would remain so for too long.
