Electric bus drives 1,100 miles on a single charge, sets world record
California-based startup Proterra has set a new world record for the longest distance travelled by an electric vehicle on a single charge. With a 660kWh of storage and 40-foot-long bus body, which is equivalent to 11 Chevy Bolts, it drove 1,7772.2 km at the Navistar Proving Grounds in Indiana. Matt Horton, Proterra’s chief commercial officer, said in a press release,
For our heavy-duty electric bus to break the previous world record of 1,013.76 miles — which was set by a light-duty passenger EV 46 times lighter than the Catalyst E2 max — is a major feat.
According to a report by Ars Technica, this feat is important in convincing range-anxious transit authorities to ditch internal combustion in favour of battery power for future fleets. The company has also developed a high-speed charging system. It takes an hour for the system to charge itself completely.
A Chinese EV builder, BYD Daimler, is working on similar plans to supply short-haul electric trucks to UPS. With this, it joins the likes of Cummins and Tesla, companies that are already working on electric semi-trucks.
EV trucks and buses have a cost per mile superior to the ones that run on fossil fuels. Ryan Popple, Proterra's CEO, said,
Driven by the best cost savings per mile, we believe the business case for heavy-duty electric buses is superior to all other applications, and that the transit market will be the first to transition completely to battery-electric powered vehicles.
According to Los Angeles Times, Proterra is selling a model with a 350-mile range, and last year, agreed to supply Foothill Transit in Southern California with a 35-foot model with a 35-mile range that can be recharged in 10 minutes.
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