-It’s great that the electric bus has been such a success and that there is so much interest in public transport. We can now really achieve green, quiet, emission free city centres. I actually take an electric bus to work every day. It’s really cool to realize that I have helped to develop it. When the first hybrids arrived, I travelled on them a great deal and I was a little tense. At every acceleration and deceleration, I visualized how the charge level of the battery was increasing and decreasing. I’m glad to say I never experienced any problems. Before starting working at Volvo I was researching lithium-ion batteries. I joined the Volvo Group in 2008 and I was involved in developing the first hybrids. At that time, we never thought completely electric-powered buses would be produced so quickly. Developments related to batteries have been absolutely fantastic.
Hanna also gives lectures on batteries at the Volvo Group University, a center of further education and competency activities for the Volvo Group’s employees.
-Already in 2008, interest in this area was enormous, but knowledge about batteries was not so wide-spread. We have now invested heavily in ensuring that everyone understands what electromobility is. I love this job! As an engineer here, there is so much development potential and it’s great to have colleagues with so many different skills. I think the best thing about the profession is the mixture of creativity and structure, really being able to see how an idea becomes a product.