2021 - Year of e-mobility? - MB Drive Services

Will 2021 be the Year of E-mobility?

Do you think that year 2021 will be the year of e-mobility? What are the drivers of e-mobility? What news can we expect to happen in e-mobility sector within this year? Or is it all a bubble that will finally burst? Is hydrogen the ultimate solution and electric cars happen to be a dead end? No matter how everything turns out we can expect a year full of exciting announcements. Join us on this incredible journey!

While we obviously don’t have bullet-proof answers to all above questions we can watch the trends already happening and try to predict the foreseeable future. And if you have read our previous articles on e-mobility you know that we don’t focus just on electric cars. This is just part of this whole much larger mega-trend that will sooner or later affect all of us.

Recapitulation of the events in 2020

Before looking into what 2021 might bring let’s shortly recap what the last year brought:

Electric cars

♦ Tesla Inc. (NYSE: TSLA) made a huge progress in construction of their European gigafactory in Brandenburg, Germany. 2021 is the year when the production of “Europe made” Teslas will start.

♦ Shares of Tesla soared by increadible 600%. In market capitalization Tesla left all their competitors far behind.

Railway

♦ ÖBB, the Austrian Federal Railways, announced largest investment in the rail infrastructure and rolling stock in the history. They believe that each single € invested returns as at least two € in long term profit. Also, investment into railway is seen as a step towards better sustainability and reduced environmental impact.

♦ In Switzerland, the Ceneri tunnel in canton Ticino was opened for service on 4 September 2020. The tunnel is composed of two single-track tunnels, each 15.4 km (9.6 mi) long. As part of the project of a century it further improves the transport of people and good through the Alps in the north-south direction.

Airlines

♦ Huge quantity of aircraft was being grounded due to sharp decline of passengers as a consequence of worldwide pandemic.

♦ Many airlines face financial difficulties and some of them already filed for bankruptcy.

First highlights of 2021

After that let’s look at some exciting announcements already made in the first days of 2021. Here are some of the highlights:

♦ ABB announced cooperation with Dutch luxury yacht builder Oceanco to build more eco-friendly superyachts using ABB’s Azipod® technology.

♦ ABB secured a contract with Haemin Heavy Industries shipyard to provide a complete power and propulsion solution for South Korea’s first all-electric passenger ferry.

♦ World’s first hydrogen-powered double decker buses to begin service in Aberdeen, Scotland by end of January 2021

What will happen in 2021?

We definitely have several events to look for.

Tesla will start production of electric cars from their newly built Gigafactory in Brandenburg, Germany.

Several leading car makers will introduce their full electric or hybrid cars to the market.

But let’s not talk about electric cars only…

Volvo Trucks keeps shaping the future of electric trucks. We have already written about the Volvo FL Electric. Several such vehicles are already operating in Sweden and Switzerland. We have brought an article about Volvo FL Electric of Galliker Transport AG that is regularly bringing material to ABB factory in Turgi, Switzerland. This year Volvo Trucks plans to electrify also larger trucks.

We certainly look forward to seeing those beautiful Volvo trucks on the roads! Volvo seems to be far more ahead than other truck makers as far as we can see and we wish the company a well-deserved success.

"We are determined to continue driving our industry towards a sustainable future."

Roger Alm President Volvo Trucks

Hitachi ABB is planning to build the charging infrastructure in multiple cities in Europe and elsewhere to support the transformation of classical public city buses into electric buses. The system solution is called Grid-eMotion™.

The network of night trains in Europe shall expand again. After years of decline, several rail companies plan to join forces again and stretch the network of night trains. While it is currently impacted by the restrictions due to COVID-19 pandemic, we see a bright future of this popular way of transport (particularly for weekend trips in European destinations).

For example, Nightjet offers over 25 European destinations.

Swiss federal Railways, SBB, is offering their SBB Green Class – a personalized mobility package. You can configure a model combining public transport with the usage of electric car according to your personal needs. The benefits are obvious:

— Cheaper travel

— More eco-friendly

— Individual and adjustable

In fact, you can even ad an e-bike sharing! Really nice idea. A (r)evolution of modern transportation?