Enova Systems has been collaborating with IC Bus for the past couple of years to build a series of plug-in hybrid school buses for testing purposes. Enova recently had an independent CARB-certified lab conduct dynamometer tests on a pair of PHEV school buses to compare the fuel consumption and emissions against conventional models. Enova's system is designed to be installed downstream of the transmission so that it can be easily adapted to buses and drivetrains from different manufacturers. One 2007 and one 2008 IC Bus Series CE bus with different engines and transmissions were tested on a West Virginia University Suburban Test Cycle designed to emulate a typical school bus duty cycle. In the tests, the PHEV buses saw a 70 percent reduction in diesel fuel consumption. Carbon dioxide emissions were cut by 40 percent while soot and NOx were reduced by 30 and 20 percent, respectively. IC Bus has also decided to cut the $200,000+ of the hybrid buses by $40,000. Currently there are 19 of the Enova equipped buses running in eleven states.

[Source: Enova]

Two of the first 19 hybrid school buses have just been delivered to Manatee County, Florida as part of the Plug-In Hybrid Electric School Bus Project. Designed to test the viability of the new buses, a hybrid and a control bus will travel the same route, alternating every two weeks, for a period of two years which should equate to more than a million miles of service each.

An array of different measures will be tracked via a GPS system including acceleration, deceleration, braking, fuel economy and more. It is hoped that fuel economy improvements of 70 to 100 percent will be realized on the plug-in hybrid vehicles plus a reduction in emissions of up to 90 percent. The hybrids will join the district's fleet which includes about 250 biodiesel-powered buses.

Analysis: These buses are manufactured by IC Corporation which has called on Enova Systems who we've reported on before to produce their hybrid-electric drivetrains. Plug-in electric technology should work well in this case as the buses return to the same depot every night where they can be charged. At $225,000 each, these buses aren't cheap, but their emissions are also expected to be 90 percent lower!

Related:

• Smith Electric Vehicles, Enova partner up for zero-emission van, truck
• Getting off the gas in Hawaii
• Enova to Provide Power Control Units for Th!nk Electric Vehicles

[Source: Bradenton Herald]

Inside the Enova Hawaii garage. Click to enter gallery.

Enova Systems, based in Torrance, California, is known for converting heavy-duty vans and buses to using fuel cell and hybrid powertrains (read previous ABG stories on Enova). In Hawaii, the Enova branch is also working on all-electric conversions. The Honolulu garage does have three fuel cell vehicles (running 20kWh and 65kWh fuel cells that power an airplane tug and a step van), but when I met with Todd Martin, manager of the Hawaii office, we discussed the company's all-electric systems.

The Enova location in Honolulu is also home to one of Hawaii's Posi-charge stations, which can quickly charge an EV, and a sign outside reads "HCATT - Hawaii Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies."

Martin walked me around the garage and explained the hows and whys of the vehicles Enova is converting. One project Martin was working on when we met in November was taking the original engine out of a delivery van and comparing the fuel economy of a new diesel-engine parallel hybrid drive train to the original. Over in a corner of the garage sits a bit of Hawaii EV history: a Geo Prizm that was the first EV registered in Hawaii in recent times . When you look through the gallery of photos that accompany this post, you'll see a license plate that reads "Electric Vehicle 1." That's the car, and it's the vehicle Martin and I started talking about...



Read our interview after the jump and check out part one of the Alt Fuel Hawaii series here. Check back tomorrow Click here for the wonders of the Bio-Beetle on Maui.

Inside the E Vehicles garage. Click to enter high-resolution photo gallery.

Hawaii has lots of sun for solar power generation, not a lot of long roads (except for on the aptly named Big Island, also known as the Island of Hawaii), and an environmentally conscious population. These are just a few of the reasons that I argued last fall that Hawaii is an ideal state for electric vehicle companies to set up shop. I'm not retreating from those positions, but I realize that it's not as easy as having the "perfect storm" of components lined up to make EVs take over a state. I learned this by talking to a few people in the alternative energy car world in Hawaii, and today and tomorrow I'll be sharing their thoughts with you.

First, on the EV front, I visited two electric vehicle shops in Honolulu in November to get the straight dope on EVs in Paradise (are we still calling Hawaii paradise? Is that still cliché enough to be cool?) I sat down with Brad Ulep, who has been bringing NEVs to Hawaii since November 1999 with his company E Vehicles of Hawaii. Today, E Vehicles of Hawaii sells the Dynasty (it's the one in the picture above, and looks a little like the VW bug) and models made by Columbia in Wisconsin throughout the islands. Business isn't brisk, but it's not dead either. E Vehicles of Hawaii sold about 80 EVs in 2006 to both private and public institutions. Julep said some companies that really should buy EVs – like HECO, the Hawaiian Electric Company – hasn't bought one.
"All Hawaiian Electric wants from us is to borrow a car every Christmas for the parade," he said. "This year I didn't even let them."

Follow the jump for the entire interview, and click on the image above or the thumbnails below to see a high-resolution (1,280 pixel wide) image gallery of 23 pictures from Enova and E Vehicles of Hawaii. The motorcycles in the pictures are by Johnny Pag, and E Vehicles of Hawaii sells them because, as Ulep said, selling electric caes is a struggle. The 250 Spyder has been a huge success for Doc White Cycles (the motorcycle half of E Vehicles of Hawaii). About half of the images in the gallery are from Enova Systems, another EV proponent in Hawaii. I'll have my interview with Todd Martin, manager of Enova's Hawaii office, up later today here. Then, tomorrow (up now), we'll take an in-depth look at biodiesel in the middle of the Pacific and give you all the details on the Bio-Beetle.

On to the interview...

Norway-based Th!nk Electric Vehicles was bought by Ford during Ford's mid-nineties buying spree and sold off a couple of years ago. Th!nk is still around and is working on new electric vehicles. Enova Systems has that they are partnering with Th!nk to supply the power control units (PCU) for the new generation of Th!nk vehicles. Enova's PCU is used to step down, regulate and invert high voltage DC power from the battery to various levels for different systems on the vehicle. The Enova module distributes power to the drive system and other vehicle systems as well as sending power back to the battery from the regenerative braking system.

The new vehicle is different from the original Th!nk city car and was never fully developed under Ford ownership. Ford abandoned Th!nk because battery technology had not advanced to a sufficient degree to provide a commercially viable range. The company is now using the latest battery technology and expects a range of about 120 miles and a top speed of 60-65 mph. The Enova press release is after the jump.

[Source: BusinessWire]

IC Corporation is the largest manufacturer of commercial and school buses in North America. If you live anywhere that has schools and school buses you have almost undoubtedly seen their products. At the BusCon Expo in Chicago, IC is launching their new line of diesel hybrid buses. These hybrid buses could be a real boon to school systems for several reasons. Many school districts, especially in states that have been hit by losses in manufacturing jobs and tax revenue like Michigan and Ohio, have been badly hurt in the last five years. These school districts scramble year after year to find ways to cut costs as their revenues remain flat while expenses for utilities, payrolls and benefits continue to climb.

A hybrid bus could be a big benefit since the usage profile typically involves lots of stops and starts which could provide for lots of regenerative braking. Maximum speeds are also typically low when moving through residential areas, so such a bus could run off the batteries much of the time. The reduction in particulate emissions from not running the engine all the time could also be highly beneficial to kids standing and waiting or getting dropped off by the bus. The buses feature a Enova System's post-transmission 80-kilowatt (peak) Hybrid Drive System coupled to the IC diesel engines. No word on availability but if the price is right this would be the ideal application of a hybrid drive system. The press release is after the jump.

[Source: BUSINESS WIRE]