Rasmus Björklund – Niemi Bil, and Dennis Larsson – BDX
As with many other advances in the green transition, it is the business community and private actors that are taking the biggest and fastest steps. Companies are driving the development towards a better tomorrow, including by electrifying vehicle fleets. This also fits very well with our friends at BDX, who in October signed a new agreement with Niemi Bil for themselves and all their co-suppliers.
The new agreement covers a range of electric cars from manufacturer Maxus, and the very popular Mazda CX-60 plug-in hybrid.
Dennis Larsson, site manager at BDX, stopped by to immortalize the occasion, and when asked how the cars included in the agreement will fit in for BDX and the co-suppliers, he was very clear about their vision for the future.
"We've had electric cars for quite a while, we were probably almost the first with it, and the advantage for us is that there will be a lot of city driving and short distances. Of course, electric cars are perfect from several perspectives, but it's also more practical for us, as diesel cars don't do very well with such driving and, among other things, particle filters get clogged, which causes us a lot of worries."
Maxus T90 Pickup
Dennis further explains that the shift from gasoline and diesel has been very organic for BDX.
"It wasn't that there was any explicit plan or strategy that a certain percentage of our vehicles would be electric, but it grew out of need. Electric cars are a very good fit for us, and we have invested a lot of resources in building an infrastructure that works for charging and operation. So it was never something forced, but we adapted very early to the advantages we saw with electric cars."
Rasmus Björklund at Niemi Bil has been involved in the agreement from the very beginning, and expresses the importance of BDX's approach to electrification, and why the collaboration with BDX is so natural.
"We are two very similar companies in many ways, I would say, even though we operate in completely different industries. We both want to drive development in our industry, make ourselves more sustainable and find new solutions. So in some ways it feels very natural that we collaborate in this particular area where our businesses overlap."
Mazda CX-60 plug-in hybrid
The agreement means that both BDX and all of their suppliers can purchase a selection of practical cars from Mazda and Maxus at a better price. The car models included in the agreement include Mazda's new hybrid SUV CX-60, and Maxus' all-electric pick-up T90.
"Already around 75% of the cars at the workplace where I work are electric, so it's really not just empty words when I say that we see this as our future at BDX. As I said, this is also evident in the large investments we have made in the infrastructure internally to allow us to drive electric"
Dennis Larsson concludes.
