Safeguarding the environment with Volvo construction equipment
During the Intermat 2018 Innovation Awards, Volvo was one of the nine companies awarded the Equipment and Machines Prize for the category: earthwork. The prize has been won thanks to the innovative and vanguard rubber tracked mini-excavator VOLVO EX 02. The new tracked Swedish machine is the result of a research project called ELEXC, started in 2012 and concluded in 2015.
The new mini-excavator branded Volvo is for the moment just a prototype, but it reflects the future expectations about the environmental protection, given that the new VOLVO EX02 is 100% electrical. This project has been financially supported by different institutions and the French administration, who designated 7 Billion Euros for its realization.
From a technical point of view, the peculiarities of Volvo EX 02 are: the two lithium-ion batteries, that replace the classical combustion engine and allows the complete recharge of an entire working-day, and the electric linear actuators, that stand for the hydraulic system.
This innovation brought numerous advantages:
- Zero emissions
- Increase of efficiency
- Decrease of the sound level
- Decrease of maintenance costs
- Optimization of the transmission’s chain
- Decrease of cooling demand