Toshiba’s Rapid Recharge SCiB battery has been selected by Proterra to power their next generation of fully electric buses. Using a lithium-titanate chemistry, the SCiB batteries are resistant to thermal-runaway and yet can be rapidly recharged and discharged with minimal capacity loss over 10,000 cycles.
The promise of fully electric buses is one of zero emissions, renewable energy, and a whole lot less noise. Proterra is introducing electric buses one American city at a time, doing battle with China’s BYD for control of the electric public transit market, and both companies will need a lot of batteries to get by. BYD is building its own batteries, but Proterra needs to source them from a third party. Enter Toshiba and its SCiB batteries.
“With a rapid recharge capability and outstanding life performance, Toshiba’s SCiB battery is ideally suited for zero-emission public transit,” said Greg Mack, Vice President of Toshiba International Corporation’s (TIC) Power Electronics Division. “Toshiba has decades of experience in transportation and we see the SCiB battery as key to expanding environmentally-friendly modes of transportation with optimum power performance in North America.”
Proterra’s electric buses can be topped off in just ten minutes, and the massive battery banks and quick recharging mean these buses can cover as much as 700 miles in a 24 hour period. Proterra has been signing contracts in cities both big (Nashville, TN) and small (West Covina, CA) in a bid to make it the eminent electric bus maker. With SCiB batteries on board, the big battery banks can go from 0% to 80% full in just six minutes.
“Because safety and performance are paramount to Proterra, we are very deliberate in each part we select for our buses, putting vendors through a rigorous qualification process,” said Proterra Inc. CEO, Ryan Popple. “Battery quality is critical to the performance of Electric Vehicles; partnering with a world-class team like Toshiba and utilizing SCiB technology will enable Proterra to offer its customers the highest-performance, safest, and most reliable urban transit vehicles.”
Source: http://cleantechnica.com/2014/09/16/toshiba-provide-fast-charging-batteries-proterra/
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