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Man convicted of spying on truck maker Scania for the Russians

STOCKHOLM — A Swedish court on Wednesday sentenced a 47-year-old man to three years in prison for spying for Russia, which involved selling secret information from truck maker Scania. The court said it had found the man guilty of acquiring and selling the secret information from the truck maker to a Russian embassy official. The court acquitted the man of similar espionage charges at Geely-owned carmaker Volvo Cars. "To be convicted of espionage, it is required that Sweden's security can be damaged if the information benefits foreign powers," the court said in a statement. "The district court has ruled that this is the case with regard to the information that the man obtained from Scania, while it has not been proven that this is the case with regard to the information from Volvo." The court statement said the man regularly received cash at his meetings with the Russian embassy official, which it considered was compensation for the information provided. The man, who has denied wrongdoing, was apprehended whilst meeting the diplomat in a restaurant, having just received 27,800 Swedish krona ($3,242). He worked as a consultant for Volvo Cars in 2016 and 2017 and for Scania in 2018 and 2019, until he was arrested. The man's lawyer said he would appeal. Scania is owned by truck maker Traton. Government/Legal Volvo Scania

Big rig gets blown over on Wyoming freeway, flattens police cruiser

A big rig navigating a stretch of windy Wyoming highway last week was blown over by high winds and landed on a Wyoming Highway Patrol cruiser. According to CBS News, three Wyoming Highway Patrol troopers responded to an accident along Interstate 80 near Elk Mountain on February 7. While the troopers were out of their cars assisting the crash victims, a white Volvo semi-truck lumbered up I-80 toward them. Wind gusts in that part of Wyoming were clocked in at up to 90 miles per hour on Tuesday, and one of them caught the semi as it neared the parked cruisers. Video from one of the cruiser's onboard cameras showed the big rig drift to the right as a big gust hit the trailer. Slowly, the whole rig tipped over and flattened one of the parked cruisers. The truck then slid a few feet on its side and came to a stop just aft of the cruiser. None of the troopers were injured in the incident, and two people in the truck came out of it unhurt as well. Patrol Lieutenant David Wagener told KGWN that that stretch of I-80 was closed on Tuesday to lightweight, high-profile vehicles. The truck driver was cited for the incident. High winds are no joke, and vehicles getting blown around or even clean off the road is a pretty common phenomenon. Way back in 2011, a truck got blown over in Utah. Then there was a train that got blown off a bridge in Louisiana in 2015. Related Video: News Source: CBS News, KGWN Auto News Dodge Volvo Driving Safety Truck Commercial Vehicles Police/Emergency Sedan semi truck rollover wyoming

How Volvo is going greener, according to sustainability chief Henrik Green

STOCKHOLM — This week, Volvo unveiled its new flagship electric vehicle, the EX90 three-row SUV. ItÂ’s not just a look at a product weÂ’ll see come to market in 2024, but a glimpse at the approach Volvo is taking to become more sustainable as it aims to go all-electric by 2030 and carbon-neutral by 2040. After the unveiling of the EX90, we had the opportunity to speak with Henrik Green, VolvoÂ’s advanced technology and sustainability officer, as part of a roundtable discussion about the brandÂ’s climate strategy moving forward. Part of the strategy is accountability and transparency. In an industry where sensitive materials like cobalt and lithium can be environmentally, socially and geopolitically problematic, traceability is paramount. Volvo will use blockchain technology — the same sort of secure ledger tech that makes cryptocurrency possible — to trace cobalt, lithium and nickel from their very origins in the earth all the way to the EX90s that roll off the factory floor. Green said he expects that traceability to expand to more materials, but those three are what Volvo can commit to today. Green also predicts a time when “you as a consumer should be able to see, ‘Here, in my app, this is the car I bought, this is where my nickel came from thatÂ’s in my car.’” While step one is improving transparency, “the next step is — this is much more long-term — how can we affect the industry to source from the most sustainable sources as possible?” And that leads us to recycling. A circular economy is the goal, where raw materials are used minimally, replaced by materials sourced from old cars, batteries, electronics and the like. But that depends on the first generations of electric cars fulfilling their lifecycles before they can be recycled. And obviously the better the longevity of products like batteries, the longer this will take. “Unfortunately, it has this built-in time lag of putting batteries out there that live until they need to be replaced, and then we will get the material back.” Partners are beginning to scout for those recyclable materials from sources like non-automotive electronics, “but the massive volume of car batteries will not be accessible until these cars have been on the road 10, 15 or more years.” But recyclability is one of the main factors Volvo looks for when partnering with companies like Northvolt, with whom Volvo is building a factory and R&D center in Gothenburg, Sweden.