Roger Alm from Volvo Trucks: Putting a price on CO2 will push the industry towards zero-emission

Firstly, we are very proud of what we have achieved. We started our battery electric production in 2019. Now we have 4,200 battery electric trucks out in commercial operations in 48 countries around the world. We delivered our electric trucks to all continents and in all climate conditions. We're holding a market share in Europe of 51%, in North America of 40%, and here in Germany we have a market share of 50% of battery electric trucks. We are investing in the future and we are scaling up this volume together with our customers to make that business even more sustainable.

We are showing our global product range. This year we have made the biggest launch ever. We are renewing our global product range around the world, both for conventional trucks and cab-over trucks. We are taking on fuel consumption on the combustion engines with 10% on the conventional trucks and 5 to 8% on the cab-over. We also are increasing our product range of electric trucks, going from six models to eight models of battery electric trucks in serial production. This is what we are showing to everybody and to our customers. I also have to say that we have a solution for all customers in all markets and in all segments for a zero-emission or low-emission product.

Of course, everybody needs to come together. It's about working together in all dimensions. What we can do to really scale up the volume of battery electric trucks—and it's not only for battery electric trucks—is to reduce CO2 so we get a better climate to live in. That is what we need to achieve, all of us together. To do that, we have the product range now as Volvo Trucks with eight models in serial production. We can do it from that point of view. We also need to get electricity, we need the grid of electricity, we need charging infrastructure. But then it's also that we need to put a price on CO2 to really get this to move. So no subsidies, but a price on CO2 to kind of get people interested in looking at electrifying their fleets a bit more quickly. Subsidies are of course good and have been good for a while, but now we need to take the next step and take this decision: put a price on CO2, and then it will be equal for everybody.

We have been very clear now since quite a number of years that we have a three-part strategy regarding our zero-emission vehicles. We are talking about electrification, we are talking about fuel cells, and we are talking about the current combustion engine running on different renewable fuels. We need to have this wide range of different solutions because we need to support our customers in all kinds of different segments and in all kinds of different solutions that our customers are operating. So therefore we need to have this three-part strategy of the different technologies.

As you mentioned, we have today announced that we are going with a 600 km product and we are putting a new e-axle and new technology into our model range. That is of course a huge step forward that we are reaching a longer distance. But we also need to be aware that we need to develop them for different applications and we need to look into the customers: how are they driving, what kind of routes are they driving. So we are then maximizing how many batteries they need to have on the product, so the cost will be there and the range will be there at the same time. So it's a close collaboration that we need to have with our customers, mapping their driving so we then have the batteries, we have the charging stations, so we get the best output for everybody.

I think that if you look at Volvo Trucks and what we have been doing, if you go back two years ago to IAA and what we launched at that point in time and where we are standing now, we are moving forward and we will continue to move forward because we would like to create a better world to live in.

Come here in two years and then we will show you.