Swedish truck giant Scania launched a plug-in hybrid semi-trailer with a body covering 100 square meters of solar panels

CTOnews.com Seven of Europe's largest commercial truck manufacturers agreed to stop producing diesel vehicles within 20 years by 2020 and have been working hard to achieve that goal ever since. Scania recently launched an innovative plug-in hybrid semitrailer. The highlight of the semitrailer is that it is covered with 100 square meters of solar panels on the 60-foot (CTOnews.com note: about 18.2 meters) long body, which can provide extra range for 560 horsepower trucks.

According to CleanTechnica, the solar semitrailer can add 5000 kilometers of driving distance per year on Swedish roads. This is a very good result because Sweden is not a sunny country. In Stockholm, for example, July is sunny for just over half the time on average, the highest percentage of the year, while November is cloudy for nearly 75 percent of the time.

According to Eric Falkgrim, project manager of Scania's semi-trailer, developed in partnership with Uppsala University and Midsummer Energy, the design also works well in sun-deprived areas such as Sweden, and if it works in such conditions, it will not be a problem in sunny places such as southern Europe, Australia or North Africa.

Falkgrim pointed out that although installing solar panels on semi-trailers may seem relatively simple, it actually involves a lot of complex technical problems, requiring a lot of new hardware and software systematization and development to ensure safe handling of power transmission. In general, solar panels are not suitable for frequent movement, so they are very complicated from a technical point of view.

The prototype has only recently begun testing on Swedish roads, and Falkgrim says the project "was to see if the solution made sense, and so far we believe it did." "While this technology is far from being truly widespread, Scania's initial tests show that it is not only feasible but promising.