Sweden's answer to the Swedish Transport Agency – Trafiverket – has already closed what should have been the country's first permanent 'river road'. Now the project is stopped completely.
Sweden drops plans to establish permanent electric roads for electric cars. The reason is simply that it no longer pays. The rapid development in battery technology has made the electric roads abundant.
Years ago, there was great interest in electric roads, and there were plans to build 100 kilometers of 'electric' road, which would primarily be built for and used by battery-powered trucks. But now Trafikverket recommends stopping the expansion.
– With today's conditions, it is not economically profitable to build electric roads in Sweden, so we therefore recommend that you do not do it, quite simply, says Kenneth Natanaelsson, strategic planner at the Swedish Transport Administration, to Sveriges Radio .
An example of the changed situation is the project on the E20 outside Örebro. Sweden's first permanent electric road was supposed to have been constructed here. But the project was stopped last year due to the high costs.
– What we have seen in the project so far is that the budget we had is not enough to carry out the project to the extent we wanted, the Trafikverket states in a comment.
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The future of electric roads in Sweden is now uncertain. Technological development has meant that the need for this type of road has fallen significantly, and the economic arguments for building the roads have weakened.
At the same time, the development is not only in the direction of electric operation. At least not among truck manufacturers. Volvo has just announced that it now fills synthetic diesel – the so-called HVO100 – in all new trucks in all markets.
At Toyota, they are experimenting with hydrogen for heavy transport. And the Swedes actually do the same. Both automakers are even experimenting with hydrogen that is burned directly in conventional internal combustion engines.
On the other hand, the critics do not think that hydrogen either for heavy transport or for passenger cars makes any sense. Volkswagen, for example, refuses to touch the technology.
– Hydrogen is not for us. Hydrogen is about pure physics and so it is expensive. It is also not competitive and especially not in passenger cars, said the brand's director Thomas Schäfer already last year.
