Commercial

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Ricardo’s fuel cell bus takes shape

On 17 August, Ricardo announced that it had received UK Government funding to convert a bus to hydrogen fuel cell power as a technology demonstrator. The vehicle, an Alexander Dennis Enviro400, will be operated by Stagecoach as part of the Tees Valley Hydrogen Hub initiative from February next year. Ricardo’s chief engineer for the conversion, […]

New Products

Hydrogen-fuelled fire engines are focus of latest funded project at ULEMCo

Hydrogen fuel company ULEMCo and its partners have been awarded UK government funding to produce an optimised design for specialised hydrogen-fuelled vehicles. Working with Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) and its Fire and Rescue Service, ULEMCo will design the fuel cell electric powertrain configuration for zero-emissions fire appliances. The funding was secured from Innovate UK under […]

Digest

VIA Motors CHEMA skateboard

This hardware system puts modularity at the heart of commercial EV designs. Rory Jackson describes how it was designed and developed. For more than 10 years, Utah based VIA Motors has strived to develop technologies and system architectures for EVs to bring to fruition its vision for the next generation...

New Products

Volta Trucks reveals its first running Volta Zero prototype chassis

Commercial vehicles manufacturer Volta Trucks has unveiled the first running prototype chassis of its Volta Zero – the world’s first purpose-built fully electric 16 t commercial vehicle designed specifically for inner city logistics. It was designed and developed in 6 months, and series production is due to begin in December 2022. The chassis has been […]

Digest

Workhorse Group C-Series

Rory Jackson details the development of these electric delivery vans, which have been designed and built from the ground up. The Workhorse Group designs and builds battery-electric medium-duty trucks, and earlier this year it started production of its C-Series vans...

Digest

vRbikes vR3

Rory Jackson looks at how this three-wheeler has been designed to carry as much cargo as possible in the smallest footprint possible. Given that an electric powertrain brings with it lower maintenance times and costs compared with ICE powertrains, so more and more EV developers are looking to ‘right-size’ their vehicles into smaller and more compact architectures, for ease of use and...

Focus on...

Fuel cells

Nick Flaherty explains the issues at play when designing and building a fuel cell. Sometimes it seems that the specification and design of a fuel cell is more of an art than a matter of engineering. While the basics of the cells are clear, most often based around a stack of proton exchange membrane (PEM) cells...

Show Report

Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Technology Expo Europe 2018

Lawrence Butcher reports on some of the latest products that caught his eye at this major e-mobility show. May 2018 saw this annual expo take place in Hanover, Germany, where it also incorporated The Battery Show. Concurrently, the conference element of the show saw a...

Focus on...

eAxles

Peter Donaldson canvasses some Tier 1 suppliers’ views on contemporary eAxle technology and the likely future trends in their design. Integrating a motor, gearing and power electronics into a compact, modular package that sits between a vehicle’s driven wheels creates a system that has come to be known as an eAxle. It is an increasingly attractive option for...

Show Report

Battery Show North America 2019 Part 2

Rory Jackson follows up his first report from this show with further highlights of the products that were on display. There were so many new innovations at The Battery Show – its largest to date – that we didn’t have room in our previous issue (Winter 2019) to highlight all the ones we...