Search Results Found For: "Xcel Energy"

A closer look at film capacitors

Plastic film capacitors relentlessly continue to take over many of the duties in EV power electronics that were once performed by the venerable aluminum electrolytic type, mainly because film capacitors exhibit much lower losses and have a much longer operational lifespan, especially at ambient temperatures in the 75-85° C range. The tradeoff is that film… Read more »

New Flyer commissions electric bus simulator

Bus manufacturer New Flyer is steadily electrifying its lineup – among other projects, it is delivering 525 hybrid buses to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. To help operators get used to the new technology, the company has commissioned an e-bus simulator at its Vehicle Innovation Center in Anniston, Alabama. The Xcelsior CHARGE Bus Simulator, designed… Read more »

2018 smart fortwo loses its top – and its gas engine

The smart isn’t for everyone, and it has never pretended to be. The media buzz these days centers around the trendy trio – Model 3, the Bolt and the new LEAF, each of which aspires to be “your affordable, every-day, one-and-only car,” as Motor Trend recently put it. The smart does not aspire to any… Read more »

MIT professor wins VW/BASF electrochemistry award for solid-state battery research

Dr. Jennifer Rupp, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, has won the BASF and Volkswagen Science Award Electrochemistry 2017 for her outstanding research results in the area of next-generation energy storage systems. Dr. Rupp’s research focuses on material and electrode designs for solid-state batteries. She explored a novel glassy-type lithium-ion conductor that… Read more »

ChargePoint to accept Voyager Fleet Card

Fleet cards, which millions of drivers of fleet cars, trucks and heavy-duty commercial rigs use to pay for gas and maintenance, are the latest component of the automotive universe to start going electric. U.S. Bank and ChargePoint are working together to make the Voyager Network Fleet Card a valid payment method at ChargePoint charging stations… Read more »

Saft team develops first metal hydride-sulfur battery

Researchers at French battery-maker Saft and Université Paris Est have, for the first time, used a nanocomposite metal hydride as the anode in a complete solid-state battery with a sulfur cathode and LiBH4 electrolyte. In “An all-solid-state metal hydride-Sulfur lithium-ion battery,” published in the Journal of Power Sources, Pedro López-Aranguren and colleagues explain that their… Read more »

AKASOL says its battery modules ace long-term endurance tests

German battery builder AKASOL subjected the latest generation of its battery modules, AKAMODULE 46Ah and 53Ah, to an eight-month endurance test featuring a range of brutally extreme conditions. The test showed service life to even longer than expected. At 50 to 55 degrees, the battery components worked for 1.5 years in full cycles at a… Read more »

New Flyer electric bus deliveries increased by 48% in 2016

New Flyer is one of North America’s largest bus builders, and zero-emission buses (ZEBs) are a growing part of its business. In 2016, the company delivered 213 “equivalent units” as zero-emission buses (one standard transit bus or motor coach equals one equivalent unit, one articulated bus equals two). This represents 8.3% of New Flyer’s total… Read more »

Turnkey drivetrains: UQM, Eaton and Pi Innovo collaborate to help build better heavy-duty EVs

We write about electric buses a lot at Charged. That’s because, as our July/August cover story pointed out, we think that e-buses will inevitably become the top choice for cities and municipalities. This could happen a lot quicker than many people realize, and some have predicted that transit buses will be the first segment in… Read more »