Volvo's VERA autonomous road-going tractor
that an electric driveline made perfect
sense in this application. He explains:
“First of all, the ef ciency on an electric
driveline is much better, especially if
you run it at slower speeds. And the
ef ciency conversion is up to four times
better. And then obviously it’s easier to
refuel or recharge with an electric vehicle
because you can do that automatically.
If the electricity is from a green source,
you will have a much better proposal
when it comes to CO2 emissions. And
it is quiet, so if your operation is from a
warehouse or from a factory, then you
can run from inside the warehouse to
the next destination without having any
disturbances.”
SKI LIFT
He compares a transport system with
automated vehicles to a ski lift: "We will
take some kind of prede ned route
that goes back and forth, and make
investments to make that ski lift or
production ow going, and then you
can expand in the same area with more
slopes or more ski lifts. It’s more of a
system. Because what we do today is
we sell trucks that are like a swiss army
knife; they could be used for anything.
They can haul timber, they can do
concrete blending. This is more purposebuilt
for a speci c task to do in a speci c
area.”
The major driver for developing the
product is cost savings, as its estimates
suggest that the driver accounts for
about 30% of operational cost, as well as
savings in maintenance costs.
So the vehicle is the product of
completely reimagining the way that
goods are transported. Continues
Karlsson: “We’re trying to put ourselves
into the future, and not merely making
a linear extrapolation of what we have
now. We are looking into these speci c
segments where we think that automation
will have a relevant place to play, and it is
typically repetitive ows very much similar
to production lines where we have a high
people transport or high capacity need.
“What we have today is a truck, which
in many ways is designed around a driver,
and if the driver disappears of this typical
work, then from a selling point of view for
instance it would be then that you don’t
really need good storage in the cab, you
don’t need a shiny exhaust pipe, high
horsepower or the other things that appeal
to the drivers. In many ways the business
model changes, the working conditions
change and the design changes as a
consequence.”
What’s particularly interesting is
that the resulting vehicle design is so
beautiful. Instead of a Frankenstein-esque
scrapheap hulk bristling with wires, Vera
has smooth, sleek lines and integrated
LED body lighting more reminiscent of
a sports car than an industrial vehicle.
This is intended to reassure people: Vera
comes in peace, according to Karlsson.
“It will be connected to humans, even if
there is no driver in the actual vehicle. It
is an integrated part of society. So we are
getting into how we think that autonomous
vehicles need to present themselves in
order to ful ll the purpose of not being
scary. That was really our inspiration, and
not to build something that looks like a
horror machine.”
To live up to that safety promise, the
vehicle is equipped with an array of 20
road sensors: three LiDAR, ve radar and
11 cameras, feeding data to and from
a nearby control tower. The 4x2 vehicle
guides itself along a path through a map
that it also creates; Volvo has partnered
with Nvidia to help with the enabling AI
technology. Two 185kW (peak) electric
motors used in the company’s electric
buses are driven by electricity stored in
three or four on-board batteries provide
torque to wheels. For safety’s sake,
steering, braking and power supplies
are redundant. The vehicle would run 24
hours a day, pausing only for a 30-minute
recharge carried out by parking the vehicle
over a non-contact inductive charging loop.
The next step, he states, is to work
with local authorities to plan and prepare
road infrastructure for the rst exemplary
system (but he would not specify by
when).
Just as innovative as the technology
is the contractual structure: Volvo won’t
sell these as individual units, but price
up the entire system and charge as a
service, per unit moved. Karlsson adds:
“It’s big logistics companies that have a
high need for transport. They are usually
seeing a certain investment over time,
and are looking at total cost of ownership.
It’s partly that, but it’s also that we think
that this is a better model because this
is what they want, to have a trouble-free
transport solution.”
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