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Volvo Technology, which has its headquarters in Gothenburg as well as operations in France, Asia and North America, is a business unit within the Volvo Group. It is the centre within Volvo for innovation, research and development, and exists to "secure hard and soft product and process innovation for superior end customer solutions," As CEO Malin Persson describes it.
Established in 1969, it employs 500 people. Volvo Technology is one of 47 participants in the 26m EC"s European Bus System of the Future project, where its has the responsibility for developing an advanced passenger flow simulation programme that can be used to help operators identify the optimal layout for a bus.
Volvo Future Hybrid bus
Optimising the use of hybrid drivelines in buses is another project where Volvo Technology is involved. Aim is to develop software that predicts the traffic situation in which a hybrid bus will be operating in the next two to three minutes. It uses the information generated by the software to optimise the use of the energy by an optimal division between the electric drive and the combustion engine.
Called "Highly Automated Vehicles for Intelligent Transport" or "HaveIt", the project is EU supported and will be complete by the summer of 2011. According to Volvo Technology it can add up to a further 10% fuel saving to that already generated by the hybrid system.
Volvo Technology is also co-operating with the Chinese bus manufacturer Sunwin, a joint venture project of Volvo Bus, which is holding 49 percent of the shares, and of SAIC, one of the main Chinese vehicle producers. One of the interesting projects of Sunwin is developing vehicles with an electric driveline, fuelled by lithium-ion batteries. At the Shanghai World Exhibition venue a number of Sunwin buses with electric drive is currently running.