by Brianna Crandall — February 1, 2012—Acting Under Secretary of Energy Arun Majumdar joined with North Carolina Congressman Howard Coble (NC-6) on January 27 to tour the Volvo Group’s truck headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina, and highlight the blueprint for “an America built to last” laid out by President Obama in his State of the Union address earlier in the week. The Department of Energy (DOE) is partnering with companies like the Volvo Group to help harness American ingenuity to commercialize and deploy cutting-edge trucking technologies and manufacturing efficiencies that will help boost the competitiveness of the U.S. auto and manufacturing industry, reduce dependence on foreign oil, and create jobs for American workers.
In partnership with the Energy Department, the Volvo Group is helping to lead the industry to advance innovative clean energy vehicle technologies and energy-efficient manufacturing. Through the Department’s SuperTruck program, the Volvo Group was awarded $19 million—which the company is matching dollar for dollar—to improve the efficiency of heavy-duty vehicles like the Mack and Volvo Trucks. Through the SuperTruck program, the Energy Department expects fuel economy increases from 6.5 miles per gallon to 9.75 miles per gallon in 18-wheelers—saving long-haul truckers more than $15,000 per truck per year in fuel costs.
Volvo Group has also embraced manufacturing efficiency as part of the DOE’s Better Buildings, Better Plants Program, pledging to reduce the energy intensity of its manufacturing plants with assistance and guidance from the Energy Department. These steps to become more energy-efficient will reduce operating costs at the facility, improving the competitiveness of the company’s products and manufacturing plants.
In December 2009, the company joined the Department of Energy’s Save Energy Now LEADER initiative, now known as the Better Buildings, Better Plants Program, to begin an ambitious effort to significantly reduce the energy intensity of its operations as a way to increase competitiveness. Since then, Volvo’s New River Valley plant, located in Dublin, Virginia, has implemented a range of measures with guidance from the Department’s technical experts that reduced its energy intensity by almost 30 percent in just one year, as documented in the Volvo Trucks Achieves Lofty Energy and Carbon Goals case study on the DOE site. Embracing energy efficiency measures helped Volvo cut costs and keep operations—and jobs—for its truck manufacturing business here in the United States.
Volvo Trucks North America is a division of Volvo Truck Corporation, which is one of the leading heavy truck and engine manufacturers in the world. Volvo Trucks manufactures a line of Class 8 trucks (18-wheelers), and is known as a major innovator in the heavy-vehicle industry, selling products in more than 180 markets worldwide.
