Jasper Kammeyer is Group Technology Strategist for CNG Mobility at Volkswagen. The German automakers have invested heavily in natural gas fueled vehicles as part of their “TOGETHER – Strategy 2025” sustainable mobility initiative. In his interview with us at Flame, Jasper explains how CNG and electric vehicles can develop alongside each other to help decarbonise the transport system, and how Volkswagen are looking to work with natural gas industry stakeholders to promote the technology.
“CNG mobility could be a good support – and a synergetic support – for electric mobility; for it to meet the future demand for climate protection in the transport sector.”
This is your first time at Flame?
Yeah, that’s right. Thank you.
So why have you decided that this is the place that you needed to be?
Because we are always talking about the topic of CNG mobility and trying to find interesting partners to talk to about the task, and the challenges of it. We’re also trying to find partners to work together on projects. So that’s why we are here – to try to have a lot of interesting talks and make contacts for the future.
Tell me then about Volkswagen and CNG – are you concentrating on CNG? Is this a big priority for you now?
Yeah I think it’s a very big priority and so CNG mobility for us is a good option. Methane as an energy carrier is a very promising topic for us because it’s immediately available as a fuel for the transport sector, and it’s also ready for usage today, and it’s combined with very low noise and exhaust emissions. Besides that, which is very important, methane can be sustainable on many different passes. Furthermore, CNG mobility could even be a good support – and a synergetic support – for electric mobility; for it to meet the future demand for climate protection in the transport sector.
And which part of the transport sector – is it domestic cars, or heavy haulage – where are you concentrating your efforts?
No, it’s actually the whole range. We are today offering a broad range of CNG products. It starts with very small passenger cars, for example the Volkswagen up!, and it rises up to the very large heavy duty trucks from the brands MAN or Scania, and also including today already some LNG trucks in the product portfolio.
And what sort of reaction are you getting from your customers?
I think we are getting a lot of positive reactions, and the demand from the customers has increased a lot within the last couple of months, but we are still growing our market share. But I think we have recognised continuous growth within the last couple of months.
You said that you wanted to talk to a lot of people here, potential possible partners in the future – does that mean that your market is actually quite open?
Sure, the market is open. And actually we don’t really have a lot of other OEM’s in the market offering CNG vehicles, so we are pretty much in a central role regarding that. And so yeah, that’s a special situation which you don’t really have a lot in the mobility sector.
And as far as the market for other partners – people to partner with – you are open to ideas at the moment, open to suggestions?
Yeah, we are open to many ideas and talking a lot to all different industries. And especially to a lot of different people from the gas industry. So there is a lot of interest in topics and projects that we could do together, and that we are already working on. So for example sustainable methane production technologies like Power2Gas, which offers a lot of opportunities for future sustainable CNG mobility.
It’s going to be a very interesting couple of years definitely in your sector.
