Volvo makes first trucks from fossil-free steel

Photo: AP

The Swedish truck maker Volvo made a major step towards meeting targets, linked to achieving carbon free production, Reuters reported. Volvo sealed a deal with steel maker SSAB, aimed at producing the world’s first ever vehicles made of fossil-free steel. Volvo has an ambition to get prototype trucks on the road as early as next year. The prototype vehicles and components will be produced from steel made by SSAB using hydrogen produced from renewable energy. Small-scale serial production will start in 2022.

“This is an important step on the road to completely climate-neutral transport,” Volvo CEO Martin Lundstedt said. The vehicles and machines will be emissions-free in operation, Volvo said, without specifying how they would run, while adding the company is reviewing all the materials used in their construction to eliminate anything based on fossil fuels. It will be sourcing steel from green steel venture HYBRIT - which is owned by SSAB, Swedish state-owned utility Vattenfall and Swedish miner LKAB. Last August, it began test operations in Lulea, Sweden, to replace coking coal, traditionally needed for ore-based steel making, with fossil-free electricity and hydrogen, which in turn is produced using only renewable power.

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