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This electric bus can travel (almost) 500 kilometres on a single charge
Costruito da zero per essere un autobus elettrico da un ex dipendente di Tesla Motors, il mezzo ha raggiunto il record di autonomia con una singola carica.
Public transports are going green. The confirmation comes from the United States, where the Catalyst XR created by Proterra reached the record of distance travelled on a single electric charge: 416 kilometres.
The company, founded by Tesla former employee Ryan Popple, has realised the bus from scratch, completely designing it to be an electric vehicle. The body is made in carbon fibre, in order to reduce its weight, whilst batteries can stock up to 257 kWh. “They really are the only transit vehicle that’s been designed, engineered and built from the ground up to be an electric vehicle,” explains Ryan Popple. “All of the previous attempts in this market have started with a steel vehicle that was designed to be a diesel or a natural gas vehicle”.
The test has been carried out on optimal conditions, in order to verify the real autonomy. However, at full load, in normal traffic conditions and adverse weather conditions, the bus can easily travel 200 kilometres on a single charge.
“The U.S. is quickly waking up to the economic, environmental, and performance benefits of zero-emission electric buses,” said Ryan Popple. “While diesel buses pollute our communities and are increasingly more costly to own and operate, Proterra is pushing the bounds of EV technology and steadily driving down costs”.
To date, Proterra has sold more than 100 vehicles to 14 different transit agencies throughout North America. It can be defined as “the Tesla” of public transports. “Achieving this range is validation for our technology and gives us the confidence that Proterra is capable of what we initially set out to accomplish – replacing every fossil fuel bus in the United States with a fully electric one.”
Cover photo: Proterra
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