• Bookstore

As a result of a collaboration between McDonald's and the Swedish energy company, Elforsk, electric and plugin hybrid vehicles will be able to top up while they "enjoy" a meal at McDonald's at selected restaurants in Sweden.

"We want to support a move towards more electric vehicles in Sweden. Therefore, we are helping to accelerate the development of an infrastructure that enables greener mode of transport.  In the spring, we will inaugurate the first charging station so our guests can recharge their batteries with electricity for the car and a lunch or coffee for themselves," said Petra Dahlman, CSR Manager at McDonald's Sweden.

The intention is to reduce Sweden's CO2 emissions and break the dependence on oil in transport. The aim is to introduce 600,000 electric vehicles in Sweden by 2020, reducing carbon emissions from the passenger car sector by almost 20 percent. This requires an efficient infrastructure for charging the vehicles.

"Electrical Engineering sees cooperation with McDonald's as an important part of efforts to build an infrastructure for the next generation of green cars," said Morgan Andersson, CEO at Elforsk.

This cooperation offers opportunities to test the charging, payment system and to get user-feedback to find out what works well and what needs to be further developed. At the moment there are only a few hundred electric cars in Sweden, but Elforsk expect electric vehicles to have a growing impact on the market over the next few years.

Kjell Jansson, CEO of Svensk Energi, the electric industry association, agreed:
"We are at the beginning of a system on the vehicle side and what happens in McDonald's is proof that the market is ripe to meet the next generation of vehicles."

McDonald's claims that it is close to 100% green energy in its Swedish restaurants.