Ten years ago, it was unthinkable to most in the industry that freight vehicles would be electrified any time soon. What with such large batteries needed, large distances that needed to be covered by the vehicles (even in urban areas), and such constant use, it did not seem possible. Roll on 2021… there are several electric vehicles available: from electric bin lorries, vans and trucks, and even autonomous freight pods. This is not to mention smaller electric vehicles, delivery robots, electric barges and (electric) urban air mobility for freight. But when will they be widespread, what charging solutions do we need, and do these electric solutions cover all urban freight transport needs?
During this session, we will discuss among experts in this topic, tackling some of these questions and more. What solutions are there for urban freight transport electrification, and what stage of development are they at? What role for different actors, and how can we support promising solutions to scale? And… can our electricity grids handle all of this?
We will stream live from Copenhagen, with speakers and panellists both online and at the Royal Norwegian Embassy of Norway in Copenhagen. An introductory keynote will be followed by a lively panel discussion, interspersed with Q&A from the audience both online and in Copenhagen. For those joining in Copenhagen, a reception will be held after the session.
Welcome to this, the third event in our series of Nordic+ Mobility webinars run jointly with EIT Urban Mobility, Innovation Norway, the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Copenhagen, and ITS Norway.
Session Facilitator: Jenny Simonsen, ITS Norway
Co-facilitator: Dr. Anna Clark, EIT Urban Mobility
Dr. Anna Clark has worked in the field of urban mobility for 15 years. She works in the innovation team at EIT Urban Mobility based in Copenhagen, and is Challenge Area Lead for Sustainable City Logistics. Before joining EIT Urban Mobility, she worked as a sustainable transport consultant in Sweden (Head of Area Climate, Energy and Environment), and as a project manager for European mobility projects at the city network Polis in Brussels. She holds a PhD in transport from the Institute of Transport Studies at the University of Leeds in England. Anna’s drive is in supporting the shift to sustainable urban mobility, and she is particularly passionate about working on decarbonisation of the transport sector to help us reach our climate goals. She also holds the position of president in the organization Women@EIT.
Henrik Gudmundsson, Ph.D. is a Senior Consultant on transport in CONCITO’s program ‘Future Cities’. Henrik is an expert in sustainable transport planning and assessment. He has had leadership positions in several research projects and working groups. He has published extensively on sustainability indicators, urban mobility, transport policy and transport decarbonization. Most recently he authored CONCITO’ reports on decarbonizing road freight and urban logistics. Before joining CONCITO, Henrik was a transport specialist at the Danish Ministry of Environment and later served 10 years as Senior Researcher in transportation policy analysis at the Technical University of Denmark.
Karin Ebbinghaus is the CEO of the innovative company Elonroad, which contributes to the system shift into to a more climate-friendly society. Elonroad enables acceleration into electrification of the transport sector by providing a novel kind of charging infrastructure. Karin has a background as a lawyer and investor but fell for Elonroad and their inspiring approach to tackling the climate challenge with new thinking and belief in technology.
About Elonroad
Elonroad is a company within e-Mobility developing, manufacturing, installing and operating technology to charge electric vehicles while driving or being parked. The company was founded in 2014 and has its office in Lund, Sweden with 12 employees. Their electrical road technology has been tested in several years on private roads and is being tested since 2020 with a project with the Swedish Transport Administration for city buses in Lund as well as a project with stationary charging with DHL. Together with its new investor Bring, additional projects will be launched within short.
Sture Portvik works as a project manager at the City of Oslo in the Agency for Urban Environment. He is an expert in e-mobility having worked on the implementation of e-mobility in the city for 7 years. His practical experience includes planning and implementation of public chargers (2100), fast chargers (78), mobility houses (2), e-taxis, electric craft and service vehicles, electric freight vehicles and trucks, electric car sharing, and he has also worked in several innovation projects in this field including with wireless/inductive fast chargers, consolidation centres for last mile delivery be electric vehicles. He brings an important perspective and in-depth understanding of the role of the city authority in the transition to e-mobility
Jenny Simonsen, is Director for Operations and New Mobilities at ITS Norway. Simonsen has over 15-years of international management experience from the Automotive and Intelligent Transport Systems business sectors.
She works with ITS Norway’s members to foster the development of new technologies and services in the mobility sector. She pays attention to emerging technologies and is very interested in smart city solutions and the building of public-private partnerships.
Simonsen is a member of the board of Sustainable Autonomous Mobility Systems (SAMS) and the Norwegian Cluster for Applied AI. Further, she heads up the action group for Maritime ITS and Smart City and is the contact point for members and associated clusters. Under Simonsen’s management, the ITS associations in the Nordic countries have established ITS Nordic+. She also manages the Nordic Pavilions at the ITS World Congresses each year.
Jenny Simonsen has degrees from Global Sales Strategies and Marketing from the Arca University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki and ESADE Business School in Madrid.
Magnus Blinge is Research manager in the area of Transport systems solutions at the Innovation Office at Scania CV with a focus on Urban logistics. He also holds a position as Adjunct Professor in Sustainable Logistics at Linköping University, Sweden. Magnus has worked in collaborative research and innovation projects in the field of sustainable freight transport solutions for more than 25 years in academia, at a governmental agency (Vinnova) and in the private sector.
Nina Egeli is heading up the Smart mobility and green transport initiatives at Nordic Innovation. Internationalisation, innovation and business development support, in combination with a strong background in strategy and policy development are main pillars in Nina’s career. She holds academic degrees in Political Science and Management. Nordic Innovation aims to make the Nordics (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) a pioneering region for sustainable growth and works to promote entrepreneurship, innovation and competitiveness in Nordic business. Nordic Innovation is an organisation under the Nordic Council of Ministers.