Finland plan to build the first green highway was strongly advertised and made public last month. We also gave notice of it through the SWOMM website.

In a recent post, Bengt Magnusson, Editor-in-chief and Europe correspondent for the ERA magazine, in the Euractiv blog, introduced  a green highway project implemented by Sweden and Norway, which would now take the first place alongside the Finnish project on our ideal podium of innovative transport projects.

The Sweden and Norwegian Green Highway, in fact, stretches from the Atlantic to the Baltic, connecting Norwegian town Trondheim with Swedish town Sundsvall. The green Highway and the electric car project is one part in the effort of the Sundsvall-Östersund and Trondheim municipalities cooperation aimed to develop infrastructure and valid communications. The project is examining the feasibility of establishing filling stations for environmentally friendly fuels and charging poles for electric vehicles along the SÖT axis. Web-based map solutions and other information material aimed at marketing sustainable mobility solutions should emerge in the end together with other concrete final outcomes. The Municipality of Trondheim has already purchased 23 electric vehicles and several workshops on the theme had already taken place. Green Highway and the electric vehicle project form part of an European Interreg project started in 2008 and still ongoing.

According to the SWOMM mandate, we cannot but welcome more and more “green highways” including plans to promote the use of sustainable solutions for mobility, such as electric charging points or less polluting fuels… Thus… Are there other green projects which have the ambition to raise to the challenge?

Related links

• http://euractiv.blogactiv.eu/
• http://www.greenhighway.nu
• http://www.swomm.info

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The Land Glider concept vehicle was designed by the R&D Nissan department and was firstly presented in the 2009 Tokyo Motor Show. The radical idea was to combine together the points of strength of both cars and motorcycles to give birth to a new way of conceiving private urban – but not only – mobility. The result was an ultra lightweight two-seats electric vehicle, which moves on four wheels but can be driven as a motorcycle, leaning in curves to a tilt of 17 degrees. Furthermore, Land Glider’s dimensions are ideal for urban mobility: 3,00 metres of length, 1,41 metres of height and only 1,1 metres of width.

What can actually be interesting under a SWOMM perspective is that Land Glider is completely electric. In fact, the vehicle is fuelled by two electric motors powered by lithium-ion batteries placed in the rear beneath the floor. Moreover, Nissan’s engineers invented a revolutionary wireless charging system, directly recharging batteries by electromagnetic induction and without need of any contact, while shopping at supermarket or stopping at a motorway service station.

With Land Glider, researchers offered a serious set of solutions to tackle the complex issue of the eco-friendly private urban mobility. In this case (as well as with regard to other new electric vehicles) the main variable to be considered is the price, and the concrete possibility to meet the customers’ demand and needs with this product. Market mechanisms will determine whether this zero-emission “half-a-car half-a-motorcycle” will be a viable future way of driving clean in this century busy cities.

Related articles

• motorward.com/
• thewayigo.com
• xspblog.com
• autoblog.it/
• motori.corriere.it
• omniauto.it
• english.ntdtv.com
• automk.com
• www.nihoncar.com
• evjournal.eu

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“Espansione”, the monthly magazine of the newspaper “Il Giornale” dedicated to the economy, has always been focusing on the issues of energy, waste and eco-sustainability. The forthcoming event, organized in cooperation with other relevant partners, addresses the media, opinion leaders and citizens’ attention on such themes as well as to ease networking among stakeholders.

The event schedule includes a conference, welcoming all the stakeholders from public institutions, utilities, research, manufacturers etc. Moreover an exhibition will take place aimed at increasing the awareness of citizens for eco-sustainability, disclosing newer electric vehicles which will be launched on the market in the upcoming months.

The participation in the event is free of charge but seats are limited and registration is compulsory. To register, click here.

Join the event and move a step in the world of sustainable mobility!

Related link

• newspapermilano.it
• ilgiornale.it/espansione_pdf
• comune.milano.it

OLEV is the result of an innovative project carried out by engineers from South Korean’s top-ranked KAIST University, who developed a prototype of an electric vehicle system powered by electro-magnetic induction through strips embedded 30 cm under the road surface. This system allows vehicles to run without emitting pollution from fossil fuels and, at the same time, is said to be a solution to the problems with “classic” electric vehicles.

In fact, providing energy from external conduction could solve the flaws connected with the cost, the weight, the inefficiency and the length in the recharge of the batteries, an age-old trouble for electric vehicles’ designers. With the electro-magnetic strips tested until now, OLEV can pick up energy at the stops or at the traffic lights, and a battery of one fifth the size of the normally used ones can enable the vehicle to run for other 50 miles.

Moreover, researchers seem to have succeeded in shielding users from the radiation of electro-magnetic power, and they are then convinced that once the system will be efficiently linked through infrastructures and power plants, buses and public transports in Seoul and other big cities in the world will finally go through a massive revolution. Test runs will be held next year and the Institute hopes to bring the system into commerce by 2013.

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