Volvo : Innovation through partnerships

Through internal and external collaborations Niklas Gustafsson and his co-workers drives the research, technology and regulatory agendas within the Volvo Group, assuring technology partnerships and research collaborations to meet future challenges.

'The Volvo Group is a company with high credibility and many stakeholders are eager to collaborate with us. It's our job to assess the players and work out who we can achieve something really important with. Our target is to spread technologies and solutions that can tackle societal challenges more rapidly, effectively and sustainably', says Niklas.
Collaboration to make a difference
In 2018 the Volvo Group and LKAB, a high-tech mining and mineral group owned by the Swedish state, together with a number of other companies, entered into a partnership to develop a new global standard for sustainable mining.

'Society is facing a number of major global challenges that impact the transport sector. To find solutions that really make a difference, we need to collaborate closely with society stakeholders, as well as with other companies.

This also impacts our long-term competiveness. It is no longer enough to produce the best, most efficient trucks. We also need to find partnership settings in which we can be involved and deliver complete transport system solutions. We can't do it on our own', explains Niklas.

Full system solutions
Charging infrastructure for electric vehicles is an example where collaboration with others is needed. The success in launching electric vehicles is dependent on supporting customers and customers' customers with a full system solution, regardless of which stakeholder actually builds the charging infrastructure. And there are several system challenges when looking at the coming transport solutions which will, stepwise, be automated, electrified and connected.

'The solutions we have developed in the fields of automation, electromobility and connectivity will be able to make a real difference when it comes to air quality, traffic safety and efficiency.

We also have many exciting partnerships in the pipeline. We have for example started an extremely exciting partnership on electric vehicles in California ', says Niklas.