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SWEDEN

Green cars hit record highs

Green is the new black as sales of environmentally friendly cars hit the roof in Sweden. Sales of green cars hit a record high during the year's first quarter.

Published: 16 May 2008 15:01 CEST

According to a survey done by BIL Sweden, Stockholm county tops the number of green cars and Västerbotten county in northern Sweden has the highest number of diesel engines.

Trollhättan council in west Sweden claims the highest number of environmentally friendly cars in the country, with 52.3 percent of newly registered cars waving the green flag. Öckerö council and Torsås council come in 2nd and 3rd place.

Of Sweden’s big city councils, Stockholm city council boasts 40.7 percent green cars, Gothenburg 40.3 percent and Malmö 25.8 percent. The national average for green vehicles is at 29.5 percent compared to 13.9 percent for the same period last year.

Of the counties, Stockholm comes up trumps again with 36 percent of cars classified as environmentally friendly. In second place is Västra Götaland county with 33.6 percent and Östergötland county with 31 percent.

Diesel engines take the top spot in northern Sweden with Västerbotten county coming in at 48.3 percent, closely followed by Jämtland county at 46.8 percent and Norrbotten county at 45.1 percent.

According to the survey, the national average for diesel engines is at 35.5 percent compared to 29.2 percent last year.

Sweden's SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå

“The transformation of Luleå is a major step on our journey to fossil-free steel production,” the company’s chief executive, Martin Lindqvist, said in a press release. “We will remove seven percent of Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions, strengthen our competitiveness and secure jobs with the most cost-effective and sustainable sheet metal production in Europe.”

The new mini-mill, which is expected to start production at the end of 2028 and to hit full capacity in 2029, will include two electric arc furnaces, advanced secondary metallurgy, a direct strip rolling mill to produce SSABs specialty products, and a cold rolling complex to develop premium products for the transport industry.

It will be fed partly from hydrogen reduced iron ore produced at the HYBRIT joint venture in Gälliväre and partly with scrap steel. The company hopes to receive its environemntal permits by the end of 2024.

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The announcement comes just one week after SSAB revealed that it was seeking $500m in funding from the US government to develop a second HYBRIT manufacturing facility, using green hydrogen instead of fossil fuels to produce direct reduced iron and steel.

The company said it also hoped to expand capacity at SSAB’s steel mill in Montpelier, Iowa.

The two new investment announcements strengthen the company’s claim to be the global pioneer in fossil-free steel.

It produced the world’s first sponge iron made with hydrogen instead of coke at its Hybrit pilot plant in Luleå in 2021. Gälliväre was chosen that same year as the site for the world’s first industrial scale plant using the technology.

In 2023, SSAB announced it would transform its steel mill in Oxelösund to fossil-free production.

The company’s Raahe mill in Finland, which currently has new most advanced equipment, will be the last of the company’s big plants to shift away from blast furnaces.

The steel industry currently produces 7 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and shifting to hydrogen reduced steel and closing blast furnaces will reduce Sweden’s carbon emissions by 10 per cent and Finland’s by 7 per cent.

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