Playing field with many possibilities
There are many drivers of the mobility transition in Switzerland. It is becoming particularly important for companies and areas to understand mobility as a service. But innovation and sustainability don't just happen. In the canton of Zug, business, politics and science are therefore joining forces.
Because theory is good, but in practice many things look different, innovations in the field of mobility require not only dialog, but also concrete implementation and testing. Because not everything can be implemented economically. Philipp Wetzel, Managing Director of the Amag Innovation & Venture Lab, admitted this at the start of the Future Mobility Forum 2024: "We try out a lot of things and always have to discard projects because we don't see a business case." The automotive industry is challenged on all fronts in the mobility transition, whether due to population growth, the enormous number of traffic jams or the currently faltering sales of e-vehicles.
Bringing the mobility of the future to life
Professor Andreas Herrmann from the Institute for Mobility at the University of St. Gallen (HSG) then explained: "We have to make people realize that mobility is not a bad thing." In Switzerland, mobility is an important factor for economic growth, which is why it is crucial for the mobility turnaround to better link the mobility and energy sectors. "We need to have a city, really big, where the excavators drive up and rebuild it for the mobility of the future." This is the only way to create a model region in which people can experience and gain access to new forms of mobility. HSG doctoral student Tamara Wisser then pointed out that we are already investing a lot in Switzerland.
"The federal government spends CHF 60 million every year on sustainable mobility - a patchwork of extremely expensive but short-term mobility experiments," she concludes critically. What is needed are not projects limited to three or four years, but entire model regions. This is exactly where the Zug Alliance comes in. Driven by business, supported by science and in close cooperation with the canton, it was founded. The aim of the new association is to promote cross-sector collaboration in order to decarbonize energy and mobility more quickly. Mobility used to be just an energy consumer, but today it can also be used as mobile storage, creating a new playing field with many opportunities.
Wallbox for bidirectional charging
Three specific ideas are being launched. The first is automated ridepooling, for which a feasibility study was carried out with a view to implementing it in two to three years. A virtual power plant will then be created. "Thirdly, we are tackling the bidirectional, grid-friendly charging of electric cars. At the Papieri site in Cham, we can implement everything in concrete terms and also test the various usage and innovative energy concepts," says Amag CEO Helmut Ruhl. "The whole thing should also be scalable." To this end, VW and Siemens are currently developing a wallbox that allows bidirectional charging.
