ABB and King Long Motor Group have signed an agreement to jointly develop an e-bus with the world’s fastest flash-charger for China’s growing battery-electric public transportation market.
The e-bus will feature ABB’s TOSA flash-charging system that tops up the battery in seconds while passengers get on and off the bus.
According to ABB, this avoids the need to take the vehicle out of service for recharging every few hours or having a replacement bus ready, thus minimising the size of the fleet.
The two companies are currently building a pilot project in China for customer demonstrations. King Long – one of China’s largest bus and coach manufacturers – will design and assemble the e-bus, while ABB will provide the TOSA flash-charging solution consisting of a wayside feeding station, an energy transfer system and an onboard battery charger.
The fast-charging solution requires no overhead lines and, says ABB, enables public transportation companies to deploy emission-free, noiseless e-buses.
“Taking less than a second for the overhead arm to connect and for battery charging to begin, ABB’s TOSA brings speed and flexibility to battery charging, making it the ideal solution for high-capacity, high-frequency routes,” said Niklas Persson, managing director of ABB Power Grids’ Grid Integration business line.
In Geneva, Switzerland, ABB’s TOSA solution has operated on e-buses for more than 500,000 kilometres (310,000 miles) and saved more than 1,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions. The system is also scheduled to start operating on 20 e-buses in Nantes, France, in September 2019.
