Volvo Group brought the transportation and logistics to center stage at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nev., last week with a keynote that emphasized the importance of the industry and the urgency with which decarbonization is needed.

Martin Lundstedt, president and CEO of Volvo Group explained why the brand considers CES a good platform for its message.

“You might not think about it all that much, but transportation and logistics is what makes modern life possible,” he said. “We are using technology to innovate and transform the very foundation of the transportation industry. And with our scale, what we do has a major impact across the globe.”

Without trucking, Lundstedt noted, “society would rapidly shut down. Hospitals would lack medical equipment and grocery store shelves would be bare.”

More than 70% of the goods used in our daily lives were transported by truck, he added. And demand for transportation globally is expected to increase five-fold from 2010 to 2050.

Transport efficiency grows prosperity

Lundstedt said studies have found a direct correlation between regions’ logistics capabilities and their GDP per capita. However, he also acknowledged that “with transportation comes negative side effects such as climate impact, pollution, and congestion.”

Lundstedt predicted that decarbonizing the transport industry will “lead to new levels of prosperity. The companies and people who make it happen will be rewarded with high levels of growth.”

But no one company can decarbonize the sector on its own, Lundstedt said. He cited examples such as Volvo Group’s partnership with competitor Daimler Truck to develop the foundation of a future generation of software-defined vehicles. The company has also partnered with other truck makers to roll out electric charging infrastructure.

Volvo is also calling on its supplier partners – all 50,000 or so, globally – to contribute to its mission to become a zero-emission truck maker by 2040. Andrea Fuder, chief purchasing officer at Volvo Group said the company is using its buying power to promote innovation. It built the first-ever vehicle made from fossil-free steel.

Three paths to zero emissions

Lars Stenqvist, chief technology officer at Volvo Group, reiterated Volvo’s three-pronged approach to decarbonization involving battery-electric and hydrogen fuel-cell-electric vehicles, as well as internal combustion engines powered by fossil-free fuels such as hydrogen.

“Different sectors in the transportation industry need different solutions,” he said. “We will see different solutions for different regions of the world. By 2040, we believe most vehicles will be electric, but not just one kind of electric solution.”

A fully autonomous new Volvo VNL – built on Volvo’s new VNL platform released last year – was displayed at the show with partners Continental and Aurora, the latter of which developed the Aurora Driver that will pilot the vehicles, eventually without a human driver present.

Sterling Anderson, co-founder and chief product officer with Aurora, said “safety is the primary value proposition of autonomy.”

“The Aurora Driver is designed to be superhuman. To think faster, see further and react faster than a human driver could,” he added. Recent testing on Texas highways with a safety driver on-board showed the Aurora Driver could detect a pedestrian on the side of the road a full 11 seconds faster than a human could see that same individual.

He played a video that showed the Aurora Driver noticing the person, tracking their movements, safely moving over to an adjacent lane that was unoccupied, giving the pedestrian more space, all before a human could see the human shape ahead.

Volvo is now running the new VNL with Aurora Driver on Texas roads, delivering commercial freight. “This is not a concept or a prototype,” Stenqvist said. “It’s happening now, already in commercial operations transporting goods for customers like DHL across Texas, with a safety driver on public roads. The final step is removing the safety driver and we’re well on our way to achieving that.”