It has the potential to revolutionize local public transport in cities worldwide: a fully electric bus for line traffic. It is to be emissions-free and thanks to its low production costs will be cost-effective to be put to everyday use. The automotive engineering developer BFFT is committed to achieving this ambitious goal by 2016. The Ingolstadt based company is working together with the "E-Bus-Pro" network funded by the German federal government alongside 8 German companies and 1 Polish company. Within the network established in 2013, BFFT's engineers assume responsibility for the integration of components like batteries and their charging and cooling systems in the fully electric bus.
The company from Ingolstadt has acquired a high level of competency as a long standing partner of the automobile industry in the area of electronic technology. For instance, for their client Audi, BFFT worked on the battery development for the A1 e-tron and R8 e-tron concept cars. Already in 2006 a complete concept for energy saving systems in hybrid buses was created by workers in the second company premises in Berlin for Berlin's local public transport ("Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe").
BFFT is now able to contribute this know-how to the "E-Bus-Pro" network. And this involves far more than just building a bus with an electric motor: in order to compete with a standard bus with an internal combustion engine, fully electric buses need to achieve a high range between charges - 120-150 km being the target. To be able to achieve this, energy efficient auxiliaries are to be used, so that as little power as possible is consumed by the air conditioning units, etc., and so that this spare power can instead be made available to drive the vehicle. And to be able to keep up with standard buses on an economic footing, BFFT plans to use a modular battery system, in which individual segments can be switched out cost-effectively. In this way the operational costs will stay on a competitive level, which will make it possible to use these vehicles for long-term routine use to operate standard bus routes. In the research and development labs of BFFT engineers are working flat out to achieve these goals. "E-Bus-Pro" plans, by 2016, to have made the vision of a fully electric bus for routine service for all routes become reality.
The company from Ingolstadt has acquired a high level of competency as a long standing partner of the automobile industry in the area of electronic technology. For instance, for their client Audi, BFFT worked on the battery development for the A1 e-tron and R8 e-tron concept cars. Already in 2006 a complete concept for energy saving systems in hybrid buses was created by workers in the second company premises in Berlin for Berlin's local public transport ("Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe").
BFFT is now able to contribute this know-how to the "E-Bus-Pro" network. And this involves far more than just building a bus with an electric motor: in order to compete with a standard bus with an internal combustion engine, fully electric buses need to achieve a high range between charges - 120-150 km being the target. To be able to achieve this, energy efficient auxiliaries are to be used, so that as little power as possible is consumed by the air conditioning units, etc., and so that this spare power can instead be made available to drive the vehicle. And to be able to keep up with standard buses on an economic footing, BFFT plans to use a modular battery system, in which individual segments can be switched out cost-effectively. In this way the operational costs will stay on a competitive level, which will make it possible to use these vehicles for long-term routine use to operate standard bus routes. In the research and development labs of BFFT engineers are working flat out to achieve these goals. "E-Bus-Pro" plans, by 2016, to have made the vision of a fully electric bus for routine service for all routes become reality.
