News

Electrosource Completes Hybrid Bus Demo

January 27, 2000 by Jeff Shepard

Electrosource Inc. (San Marcos, TX) recently announced it has successfully completed a year-long revenue-service demonstration of hybrid-electric buses equipped with Electrosource batteries.Five Orion VI hybrid-electric buses, powered with Lockheed Martin's (Bethesda, MD) HybriDrive propulsion system, have logged over 80,000 miles of daily service during calendar year 1999. According to Electrosource, the daily service schedule required the buses to operate up to 18 hours per day, seven days per week.The buses use a high-voltage string of Electrosource 12V, 85Ah batteries to boost the constant-speed diesel-engine acceleration power, and to assist the bus braking system by absorbing kinetic energy through electrical regeneration."The combination of battery and diesel-engine power enables the hybrid bus to operate with greater total energy efficiency and significantly lower emissions than is possible with conventionally powered buses," commented Bill Schuhle, Lockheed Martin's hybrid electric vehicle program manager. "Battery performance and reliability are critically important to realizing the advantages provided by the hybrid drive-train. The Electrosource battery technology has performed admirably in the new and demanding environment of hybrid propulsion."