The project’s objective was to demonstrate the feasibility of DME technology for heavy duty vehicles, by building and running four DME prototype lorries. One vehicle would serve testing and development purposes, while the remaining three prototypes would be customised to perform municipal tasks for the City of Växjö, Sweden. The initiative would also address the issue of DME storage and distribution, by building and operating a demonstration DME fuel station.

Within Europe the main alternative diesel engine biofuel candidate is synthetic diesel. The motivation for the DME Vehicle project was that the more energy- and cost-efficient alternative of DME requires new infrastructure. DME Vehicle aimed to contribute to a better cost assessment of a paradigm change, with the further aim that the results would also serve as input to other European Commission initiatives. One important objective of DME Vehicle would be to match DME efforts in, for example, Asia (several DME initiatives have been made in both Japan and China).