Environment Archives

Saab ANA Win journalists’ Green Award for Tri-Fuel Saab 9-3

On Monday, a group called Gröna Bilister (Swedish Association of Green Motorists) presented a list of the 41 cars that reached the final of their Best Environmental Car award.

A satisfied Joachim Lind from ANA, the Saab dealership in Trollhattan, is seen at right posing with the car that was the first choice amongst a jury of journalists involved with the award.

There were four separate juries involved in the awards – automotive journalists, environmental managers, families and retirees. These groups tested the cars on the STCC Göteborg City Racetrack in Gothenburg. The idea of having juries is that they represent different customer requirements in the Swedish market. Each group nominated a class winner. The motor journalist’s choice was a biogas variant of the Saab 9-3, called Trifuel, which also turned out to be the environmental managers’ third choice.

In order to be a finalist, it was required that the car should emit less than 120 g km CO2 life-cycle emissions, must have received five stars in EuroNCAP’s crash tests (four stars for electric vehicles) and must be available for delivery no later than August 31. Finalists ranged from small cars to family cars.

The Saab 9-3 Trifuel can run on either compressed natural gas, E85 ethanol fuel or regular gasoline. The vehicle is built by ANA Trollhättan from vehicles supplied by Saab as there is a local demand for biogas-powered cars within the municipality and Västra Götaland. Saab Sweden have been working with ANA on this project for some time because they see opportunities for biogas car outside Trollhättan.

The head of Saab Sweden, Magnus Hansson:

-We believe that ANA’s conversion of Saab cars for biogas cars is an interesting project and see a role for us to support the distribution outside Trollhättan. We have had a co-operation since the fall of 2010 and this will be assessed to see if and how we can move on.

An awards ceremony was held this week at Gustav Adolf’s Square. The award for the Best Environmental Car 2011 went to the car with the most total points from the different groups, namely, the VW Passat TSI EcoFuel, which run on gas and petrol.

The Saab 9-3 Trifuel ended up in third place in the overall standings. Second place was another Volkswagen, namely gas car VW Touran TSI EcoFuel. ANA’s President, Joachim Lind was on hand to receive the automotive journalists’ prize won by the Saab 9-3 Trifuel.

Saab Zero Emissions EV fleet under construction

The Saab 9-3 ePower Concept was first introduced at the Paris Motor Show in September 2010. Now, a fleet of vehicles based on that concept is under construction at Saab’s factory in Trollhattan.

Off to the side of Saab’s main production line is a room called Frickeboa, which is a multi-purpose facility that we’ll learn a bit more about in future entries on this site. Think of it as a combination of a prototype production line and training facility.

Right now, Frickeboa is being used to hand build Saab’s test fleet of zero emissions vehicles. The particular vehicles you can see in this article are intended to be used for validation testing inside the company. The final fleet vehicles will go out later this year and be used extensively by a select group of drivers, with feedback from the process being used to further improve the technology.

The Saab 9-3 ePower, the basis for these test vehicles, uses a lithium-ion battery pack and a new, advanced battery management system to deliver 200 kilometers of zero-emissions driving with the convenience of a full sized family wagon.

The Saab ePower is the first electric vehicle from Saab and is a result of a co-operation between Saab Automobile, Boston Power (batteries), Electroengine in Sweden AB (battery management system), Innovatum (project management), Power Circle (Sweden’s electric power industry trade organization) and the Swedish Energy Agency (partial financing).

Here’s a look at what’s happening on the build right now…

Saab 9-3 SportCombi bodies awaiting their fit-out as zero emissions electric vehicles.

Parts awaiting fitment are stored off to the side of the Frickeboa production line. Each crate has a label denoting an individual ZE vehicle from the production run.

A couple of vehicles on the line…… think of Frickeboa as a smaller, but fully functional version, of the main production line.

And a closer view of the same vehicle…..

A view of the battery case inside the vehicle. It goes down the middle of the car, allowing for optimal weight distribution and forms a divider between the two rear seats.