Collaboration agreed
The Swedish Energy Agency and its US counterpart, the Energy Information Administration, are to invest $9 million each in a hybrid car project at the manufacturer Volvo, whose US subsidiary Mack will invest $18 million.
The new plug-in hybrid car will have a more powerful battery and will be able to run further using only electricity than previous hybrids. The project aims to cut carbon dioxide emissions and the cost of hybrid cars.
Sweden’s minister for enterprise and energy, Maud Olofsson, and Alexander Karsner, the US assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, signed the agreement earlier this month. “The signing furthers the historic energy cooperation commitment between the US and Sweden as we work together to advance the research, development and deployment of plug-in hybrid vehicles from the lab to the marketplace,” said Karsner.
As part of the project, the research organisation, Test Site Sweden will receive $1 million to investigate and evaluate various charging technologies for plug-in hybrid cars. The project will use a charging station developed at Argonne National Laboratory, part of the US Department of Energy, and a concept plug-in hybrid car from Volvo.
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