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interface news reporter | gao jing

at 9 o'clock on a weekday morning, the volvo trucks tuve plant, a half-hour drive from the center of gothenburg, sweden, is very quiet, making it difficult to tell that this is a functioning heavy-duty truck production plant.

when you take a sightseeing truck into the production plant, unlike the serious and busy working scene you imagine, the first thing you see is factory employees chatting and drinking coffee together. such tea breaks are a daily routine for tuve factory employees.

there is a jungle area in the center of the factory, with fish ponds and palm trees, where factory workers usually choose to eat.

unlike many factories, the noise level of the tuve factory is relatively low. according to peter setterstig, the head of the tuve factory, on the one hand, the factory uses electric equipment and tools as much as possible, which are not very noisy; on the other hand, the factory took the noise problem into consideration when it was built, and used special building materials and designs to absorb some of the noise.

the tuve factory, which opened in 1982 and covers an area of ​​117,500 square meters, serves customers in 100 countries around the world. the factory is now carbon neutral.

carbon-neutral operation means that the amount of carbon dioxide emissions generated by an enterprise during its production and operation process is equal to the amount of carbon dioxide reduced or absorbed through various measures, thus achieving a balance.

unlike the highly automated 4.0 manufacturing plants, the production at the tuve plant still relies mainly on manpower, with a total of 2,500 employees from 35 countries working there.

according to peter, the tuve factory produces four types of trucks, fm, fmx, fh and fh16. on this basis, the factory implements order-based production. for each truck, customers have their own special requirements and different configuration requirements.

generally speaking, a truck cab contains more than 900 parts, and the tuve factory prepares up to 3,500 parts for the cab; the cab also comes in 800 colors, with 36 white colors alone, for customers to choose from.

"under such a production background, batch and automated production models are difficult to meet demand," said peter.

to meet the needs of customized production, the truck assembly line at the tuve factory adopts a fishbone structure, with the main assembly line as the core and the assembly and pre-assembly lines as branches close to the main assembly line. similar to the process of building blocks, the sub-components of the truck are completed on the assembly and pre-assembly lines, transported as semi-finished products to the main assembly line, and assembled together into a complete truck.

peter said that the factory will try to modularize and standardize the main assembly line as much as possible, and assign variables to the assembly and pre-assembly production lines, so as to produce different models of trucks on the same production line and meet the personalized needs of different orders.

at the tuve factory, it takes only six hours from frame components to assembly into a finished truck.last year, the tuve factory produced a total of 27,000 trucks, including traditional diesel-driven trucks, liquefied natural gas trucks, electric trucks, etc., all from the same production line.

in the third quarter of 2022, the tuve plant rolled off the first batch of electric products, including electric versions of fh, fm and fmx. since then, it has become the first factory among global truck manufacturers of various brands to have a series of electric product production.

peter said, "although there are no specific statistics, we can feel that the orders for electric trucks are increasing."

at present, the battery cells for the electric trucks at the tuve plant are still mainly purchased from outside, while the battery assembly is completed through volvo's battery assembly plant in belgium.

the volvo group plans to build a large-scale battery production plant by 2030, and the batteries will be used in electric trucks, buses, construction equipment and other fields. the group plans to achieve net zero emissions across the entire value chain by 2040 and provide 100% safe, 100% non-fossil fuel, and 100% capacity-enhancing transportation and infrastructure solutions.

in addition to regular production, the tuve plant is also responsible for the first launch of new volvo trucks products. the volvo group's latest truck products, such as the first truck of the latest fh electric truck, are produced in tuve.final assemblyoffline.

there is a small "test field" in the tuve factory, namely the trial assembly line, which is used to experiment and verify the production process and required technologies of new products in cooperation with the group's technical department and production operation department.

in this pilot line, tuve will conduct experimental verification of new tools and develop new production processes for new products, and formulate new production standards. after these standards and processes are completed in the pilot line, they will be promoted to other factories.

the trial assembly line enables the factory to fully verify the production process and technical requirements of new products before they are officially put into production, ensuring that the new products can smoothly enter the large-scale production stage.

regarding the emerging new forces in the global automobile industry, peter said, “the current competition in the truck market is quite fierce, but the tuve factory has accumulated 40 years of production experience.we will incorporate past production experience into the production process of new electric trucks。we believe this experience makes us uniquely competitive in the market.”

the volvo group was founded in 1927.forsweden's largest industrial conglomerate, currently mainlythe group specializes in the manufacture and service of drive systems for trucks, buses, construction equipment, marine and industrial applications.with production bases in 18 countries and operations in 190 markets, it employs approximately 100,000 people。

by 2023, volvo group willapproximately 246,300 trucks delivered, setting a new record high. this part of the business achieved net sales of 373 billion swedish kronor (about 258.783 billion yuan), accounting for 67.47% of the group's net sales.