“The center is meant to serve as a hub for the exchange of ideas and a place where companies can develop and test new sustainable mobility innovations,” said Rob Whyte, managing director, Alstom Nordics.
By opening the lab to external partners, Alstom hopes to accelerate the transition to an emission-free future through cross-industry collaboration. The climate-smart mobility innovations of the future will result from cross-fertilizations between industry, universities, and start-ups.
“Sweden is in the middle of a green transition. But the electrification of road and construction vehicles requires competence that is relatively limited in Sweden. Cross-fertilization between industries is therefore necessary to accelerate the process,” Rob Whyte explains.
The center has already begun operations quietly prior to the official ground-breaking ceremony. Alstom has invited external users into the testing lab and started collaborating with e-mobility start-ups. Today’s ground-breaking on the new annex marks another important milestone, with the center expected to be completed by 2023.
Alstom has pioneered several sustainable mobility solutions in line with the ambition to facilitate the global transition to low climate footprint transportation systems. In Sweden, the company has global development centers for drive, control, and signaling systems in Västerås and Stockholm. Among other innovations, the new energy-efficient silicon carbide-based drive system technology demonstrated in the Stockholm subway in 2018 has its origin in Västerås.
Last August, Alstom's Coradia iLint passenger train, the first in the world to be powered by hydrogen, made its Swedish debut in Östersund for two days.