Electric bus builder Proterra and Korean battery giant LG Chem have partnered to develop a battery cell optimized for the heavy-duty vehicle market.  The cell chemistry has been optimized for maximum energy throughput, charge rate acceptance and energy density.

Proterra claims its Catalyst E2 bus, introduced last year, offers the longest range of any electric transit bus on the market: 350 miles, long enough to meet the daily mileage needs of nearly every US mass transit route.

The E2 battery pack has a pack-level energy density of 160 Wh/kg and specific energy of 260Wh/L. Proterra’s new Burlingame battery production facility can produce over 500 MWh of E2 battery packs per year.

Proterra’s ISO 26262-certified battery management system monitors cell temperature and voltage with more than 70 sensors, which capture 160 diagnostic data streams from each pack. The E2 packs can be interconnected in various series and parallel configurations for heavy-duty and second-life applications.

“Safety is paramount to our battery design philosophy,” said Dustin Grace, Director of Battery Engineering at Proterra. “We have implemented redundant layers of passive and active safety features into the architecture of the battery in concert with the vehicle itself.”

“It is a pivotal time in the heavy-duty vehicle market as transit, delivery and refuse services wake up to the combined benefits of electric propulsion,” said Ryan Popple, Proterra CEO.

Source: Proterra