CHALLENGE
Developing Volvo’s first purely electric car C30 Electric. For that purpose, we formed a consortium with Volvo Specialvagnar in 2009, and applied for funding from Vinnova. Our application was granted and our responsibility was to manage the lion’s share of all the electricity software development, including telematics. A challenge both in terms of technology and in terms of managing a very offensive schedule.
SOLUTION
- The work started W4 2009 and on Friday W23, the first test drive was conducted.
- The project started with a C30 in which the powertrain was replaced with a fully electric powertrain with a range of 150 km
- Large parts of the electrical system in the passenger compartment could be retained, but all the electronics and software pertaining to propulsion and climate control had to be developed from scratch
- Considerable efforts were spent on achieving an extremely high safety level and several advanced crash tests were conducted
- We also developed a revolutionary telematics system for remote diagnoses as the project grew and it was decided that the car would be supplied in several different markets
- Two versions of the C30 Electric were built and a total of around 400 cars were manufactured
- Netgroup’s contribution to the project amounted to over 100,000 hours