Håkan Agnevall

• SJ: Why has Volvo done comparatively badly in Europe outside Scandinavia and the UK and how will you address this?

HA: It is very fundamental. We need to provide products that fit our customer’s needs, it’s as simple as that, in terms of fuel consumption, reliability, cost and also feature wise, the feel and touchables. I think we are coming from a Nordic, Scandinavian and UK tradition and I would see us, trying in our product offering, to make it a continental offering. I think we are making progress, in the city segment we are making definite progress. In Europe many cities and Governments have made commitments to emissions reductions by 2020. On top of that, there’s also been commitments or statements to double public transport, and if we’re going to achieve that we need to have environmentally friendly transport solutions and as a consequence of that, there are alternatives, but in our view, after some thorough evaluation, on the bus side we see electromobility as the most efficient and environmentally friendly solution.

• SJ: Where do you go next with right sizing engines?

HA: We have developed the five, eight and 11-litre engines for Euro6. The 13-litre will be the 11-litre, the seven to nine will be the eight-litre and then we have the five-litre which we use for the hybrids and the double deck, and we see that by going to Euro6 we have a fuel saving of two to ten per cent, combining it with driver assistance in ecological driving. When it comes to discussion about double and single deck in the UK market and why five litre in the double deck and not yet in the single deck, I would say that we started with the double deck. You need to start somewhere. Of course, we want to develop considering volumes and business opportunities.

Fitting a 5.1-litre engine in the double deck is evidence of the customer focus at Volvo and also a step in a wider move toward downsizing. This is a late Euro5 example in build at Boras

• SJ: Has there been any resistance to your all-hybrid full low floor single deck policy and have you lost any sales as a result?

HA: It is hard to tell. In general we have had an extremely positive response. Especially in the Nordic markets, there is also a very strong gas alternative. We love gas, especially biogas, when you recycle waste that you can turn to energy and use, but our opinion is that you should burn the gas in a power plant, generate electricity and then feed the electricity to electric buses. There are two advantages to that in our opinion; the first is energy efficiency because it is much more efficient to burn it in a power plant, there is a factor in the difference. The second is environmental friendliness. We would suggest that it is much more environmentally friendly to burn it in a power plant outside of the city core than having it in a gas bus inside the city core. But of course that is our opinion.

• SJ: Given that there are people buying gas buses, in limited numbers, in the UK, do you see yourselves offering a gas option?

HA: Not in the foreseeable future. We have made a commitment to electromobility because of the two drivers I mentioned and I think we will stick to it.