Some Things Are Just Worth Waiting For

According to lead Volvo engineer Ichiro Sugioka, the Volvo Plug-in Hybrid is worth the wait. Volvo recently released its first production Plug-in Hybrid, the V60, for the European market, but it was many years in the making. “I work at the Volvo Concept and Design Center in Camarillo, where we have been working toward this car since 1990. We have been experimenting with the necessary technologies as they became available, and it’s only recently that we found technology good enough to make a practical car,” said Sugioka.

While the lithium ion battery is a key element; Sugioka believes the electric motors also can be improved quite a bit. “It’s not just about, ‘does it function?' It is also about, 'How much does it cost? How long does it last?’ That’s why it takes so long. We are not going to put a product out on the road that is a science experiment,” he added. When you work for a world class company like Volvo and are designing a vehicle to be road-worthy, it is quite different from a typical university project. “There’s a big difference in what we do and what they do. For a college student, if it breaks, they learn something. If one of our cars breaks, that is not a good thing. Our cars must be safer and more affordable; and that is what my job is right now.”

Sugioka was born in Japan, and when he was seven years old his father was transferred to New York City. After he graduated high school, he attended Caltech Pasadena for his undergraduate degree and received a master’s degree from MIT. “I went back to Caltech for my PhD, and I’ve been here ever since,” he said. When you ask him how he got into designing cars, he chuckles and says, “I’m really a rocket scientist! My thesis is applicable to rocket engines.” After the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed, there were very few jobs for people who design missiles. Sugioka ran wind tunnel testing at Caltech for many clients, which included several car companies in an effort to help make cars more efficient. Volvo was among many car manufacturers he worked with back in 1989, and in 1994 Volvo hired him to work at its Monitoring and Concept Center. “I can’t believe I’ve been here 17 years!” he said.

Sugioka worked on the first S80 that was ultimately produced in 1999. This took five years. “It takes that long to get a car on the road,” said Sugioka. After that, he worked on the first S60 and the first XC90 and finally began working on electric cars. “I was the project leader for the 3CC, 2004 electric car, and it was a vey significant step for us. It was one of the first cars with lithium ion batteries on the road. This experience eventually led to the pure-electric C30 battery electric car that is now available in Europe. It’s a luxury electric car, so it’s pricey. It’s not for the mass market. It’s for people who ‘just have to have one.’ We put emphasis on making it safe and working in subfreezing weather, which is not something other electric cars can claim to do,” said Sugioka. “The lithium ion battery is really a new technology; it didn’t exist when I joined the company. We don’t want to rush into anything too fast and get our customers into trouble,” he added.. As always, Volvo focuses on the safety of the driver and designs its cars to perform during the worst possible situations. With electric cars, special care has been taken to encapsulate the battery in such a way that protects it and the driver in the event of an accident. The “three-cars-in-one” Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid is the kind of car that Volvo will ultimately produce for sale in the United States. The “Pure,” “Hybrid” and “Power” buttons on the center console allow the driver to choose an electric car, a hybrid or a higher horsepower “fun to drive” mode.

“The one that we are producing right now is made for the European market with a diesel car so we can learn as much as we can about the first product and see how the car is used in normal driving situations. A diesel car does not meet California emissions standards, but we have a really heavy mandate by Europe to produce this car. If you travel to Europe we recommend you take a test drive in one and experience the ‘three-cars-in-one’ experience.” You can’t really compare the Volvo Plug-in Hybrid with any of the hybrids sold here in the United States, because it is a completely different car. European drivers are much different than American drivers. Europeans accelerate harder on the freeways, and in Germany there is no speed limit, so you don’t get the same fuel economy as you would get here in the United States. “Because people in Europe drive so fast, you need a different kind of car, a different kind of engine; and the Prius is not it. Most people don’t realize that a hybrid runs on its engine power once you are in highway speed; then it’s not running on the electric power anymore,” said Sugioka.

Volvo is also looking at a wheel motors technology. Similar to the seatbelt technology that Volvo developed but deliberately didn’t claim exclusivity for so that other car companies would use it, Volvo developed wheel motors technology and made it available for other car companies. “We aren’t making it exclusive to Volvo, because this is something that can help others make cars run more efficiently,” said Sugioka. With the wheel motors technology, the experimental C30 plug-in hybrid has 400 horsepower total with each wheel producing 100 horsepower. It is currently undergoing testing in the UK, and, according to Sugioka, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to improve durability and cost. “We are doing a lot of durability testing. After a few thousand miles, they fix it and make it last longer. On the plus side, this technology allows software to make the car do almost anything,” he added.

Stefan Jacoby, President and CEO of Volvo Cars, summed up the theory behind the Volvo second generation hybrid when he said, “In order to get true car enthusiasts to think green, you have to offer them the opportunity to drive with low carbon dioxide emissions. That should not, however, take away the adrenaline rush that promotes genuine driving pleasure.”

The Adventures of Dwight and Loretta Lindholm

Dwight and Loretta Lindholm have decided that it’s time for another adventure. So they are taking advantage of the Volvo Overseas Delivery Program and will fly to Sweden in April to take delivery of their 2011 Volvo XC70. This is their second overseas delivery with Volvo. The first time was January 2004 when they picked up a Volvo V70 wagon and drove 2500 miles throughout Europe in snowstorms.

For most folks, the idea of travelling to another country to take delivery of a new car may seem like a big adventure, but for the Lindholms, now both 80 years old, it pales in comparison to the extended cruise they took to the South Pacific with their five children and two dogs in the early ‘80s.

“It was just a lark,” said Dwight. “I woke up at six o’clock in the morning on Oct. 24, 1976, and the idea of putting my family on a boat and sailing around the world just occurred to me. I thought about it for an hour; then I nudged my wife and thought this would make short work of the idea. She listened and said, ‘That sounds like a good idea. Let’s do it!’”

The next step was to tell all five children. “They all happened to be at our beach house at that time. We took each one aside and told them about the idea. Children 17 years and younger will agree to anything five years down the line. I told them to give me two to three days before I commit to a date, and within a few days, we chose June 12, 1982.”

What makes this story even more unusual is that Dwight had never set foot on a sailboat, and Loretta doesn’t even know how to swim. “It took us five and a half years of preparation before we left. I had never been in a sailboat until I was 47 years old. I decided to take the trip before I ever got in a sailboat!” said Dwight.

They say the devil is in the details, and the Lindholms knew how important it was to master the art of sailing before attempting a trip of this magnitude. A four-month run to Mexico in the Golden Viking II 51’ Force 50 sailboat would serve as a test of their sailing skills. Dwight chose the name “Golden Viking” as representative of his home and his heritage. “’Golden’ was for the state of California and ‘Viking’ was for my heritage; I’m from Minnesota. Originally my relatives came over in 1868 from Sweden. In fact, they came from a place close to Halmstad which is about 100 miles south of Gothenburg called Långaryd. We have relatives there. We are part of the largest “mapped” families in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records with over 100,000 names.”

Golden Viking I was a 29’ Erickson which the Lindholms kept on charter with the Calipso Fleet in Marina Del Rey. “As I look back on it, Golden Viking I was almost like child’s play. We went back and forth to Catalina on weekend trips; and this included six trips in small craft advisory bad weather. In October of 1978 we ordered the Golden Viking II to be built in Taiwan. After that, the whole project took on a magnitude of damn serious business. As it was being built, I spent my weekends in marine stores, reading. During the week I devoured all of the yachting magazines and must have read fifteen or twenty books. A lot of office time was taken up in telephone calls, exploring different types of equipment and system strategy on the boat. In the two and one-half years that followed before we left for Mexico on December 16, 1981, Golden Viking II went out eighty times including sixteen overnights on anchor out at the Channel Islands.”

There was much to do to prepare. Dionne (Dee Dee) and Dwight got qualified with advanced licenses in Ham radio, and Loretta received a general license. It took four and a half months to get a general license and another four and a half months to get the advanced license.

Dwight insisted that everyone take Scuba Diving lessons, which consisted of seven three-hour sessions for each of them and another seven ocean dives. “Finally, six of us, excluding Loretta who didn’t swim, were certified scuba divers. Kathy at age 11, was the youngest to have ever been certified by the school. That almost broke my back. It seemed like every week, one or the other of the kids wasn’t up to speed with the pool work or the ocean dives, and I had to come in in the middle of the week to have them do the lesson over to keep them up to speed with the group,” said Dwight.

Dwight and Loretta took the Coast Guard Auxiliary Seamanship course followed by a Coastal Pilot course, followed by another examination that, according to Dwight, “only half the class passed.” Douglas and Dwight took a 25-hour private tutorial course in celestial navigation. They would not have the luxury of any fancy electronic navigation systems.

It was Dwight’s concerns about pirates that determined his choice in a guard dog. “At that time there was some danger of pirates for fisherman along the coast of Mexico, so before we went to Mexico for the ‘shakedown cruise’ for four months, I investigated guard dogs and brought a Rottweiler puppy. She was on the boat the entire time.”

As with all best laid plans, there were a few hiccups. The Golden Viking II arrived in April but without its main mast, which had been mistakenly dropped in Oakland by the carrier ship. “All of this delayed the thing six weeks before I got this half-ton mast trucked down here to Los Angeles. I might say, getting it off the ship in San Pedro and all twenty-six tons trucked up to Oxnard was quite a major undertaking.”

On July 1, 1979 Golden Viking II was put under sail and was moved out from the dock 25 out of 26 weekends.

“Getting down to the wire, we’d overlooked first aid, so one month before we left in May 1982, I took a twenty-four hour three-day weekend crash course in offshore emergency medicine. I was intrigued by the fact that of the twenty students in the class, I was the only one who had immediate plans to take an offshore voyage. And only one other person in the class had ever been off shore,” said Dwight.

The big day had finally arrived. On June 15, 1983, Dwight and Loretta and their five children: Douglas (22), Dionne (21), Jeanne (18), Philip (14), Kathy (13) and the two dogs, Asta and Tammy, set sail for an extended cruise that lasted over 13 months. It took an entire month at sea to reach French Polynesia and the family spent two and a half months visiting six inhabited islands of the Marquesas which has no tourist accommodations. “This is a place you only visit by private yacht,” said Dwight. “The Marquesas Islands are very mountainous but hunting and fishing are good. The islands vary from very pristine, barefoot, horseback, outrigger canoes and living off the land to a little more advanced with a few cars, jeeps and small stores. We visited Hiva, Oa, Fatu Hiva, Tahuata, Ua Pu, Nuka Hiva and Ua Huka.”

They spent seven weeks in the Tuamotu group and five months in Tahiti’s Society Islands (from November 20, 1982 until April 19, 1983). “We were at sea 26 days going down and 40 coming back,” said Dwight. Despite no major mechanical failures until the transmission went out at the very end of the trip, the Golden Viking II survived seven tropical cyclones while in the French Polynesia and five were hurricane strength.

When asked what prompted a trip of this magnitude, Dwight says he is pretty sure he was experiencing a mid-life crisis. “I think in looking back, and at the time I joked about it, but I think it was a midlife crisis. I was 46 years old and considered myself a failure …I wasn’t a complete failure as I had just become a biographer in the 1946 edition of “Who’s Who in America.” Moreover, having come to California in 1957 with very little, I had made enough money to finance this great sabbatical. It was just that I had big objectives for my life, and I had accomplished none of them; and that is what a midlife crisis is about. You are not going to become the president and the CEO of the company. It doesn’t mean you are a failure, but in your mind’s eye you have to give up the thing or things you have been shooting for all your life; and that is what a midlife crisis is. Women have them more than a generation ago because they are also in competitive positions.”

Dwight is keenly aware that he is married to a very special woman. It is hard to believe that Loretta agreed to live on a boat with her family for more than a year without ever knowing how to swim. Dwight just chuckles and said, “I wanted to get a life insurance policy on her, and she said ‘no life insurance policy is a good insurance policy for me.’ As I look back on it, I sometimes don’t believe we did it.”

What does this once-in-a-lifetime adventure mean to Dwight and his family? Dwight writes: “We have experienced joy, love, hate, sorrow and terror together. Anyone could have quit and gone home. Each one at one time or the other felt like it. All stayed to the end.”

28 years later, the Lindholms have 13 grandchildren and continue to be grateful for the time they spent together on their South Pacific voyage. While many of his children would like to have a similar adventure with their respective families, it “doesn’t seem to be on the radar screen for any of them. This is something that not very many people can do.”

Picture: 1982 The Golden Viking at Ensenada Grande Island, just north of La Paz (3/13/82)

Picture: 1982 Easter Family picture at San Diego Harbor

If you are looking for an adventure and are not quite ready for an extended cruise to the South Pacific, you might want to consider the Volvo Overseas Delivery program. Here are just a few benefits:
A huge savings off the MSRP compared to taking delivery of a Volvo that has already arrived here in the USA.
Roundtrip tickets for two to Europe
One free night at the Radisson SAS, a first class hotel in Gothenburg, Sweden, home of Volvo
Fifteen day European Car Insurance coverage including Swedish temporary registration of your new vehicle
Tour of the Factory Delivery Center in Gothenburg, Sweden and a complimentary Swedish Meatball lunch
Travel packages and much, much more

Give us a call at 818/577-2500 and get plans underway for your adventure of a lifetime.