LONGMONT, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--(NYSE MKT: UQM) – UQM Technologies (UQM) has secured global commercial customers as early adopters of its full drivetrain solution, the PowerPhase®DT. These early adopters include Hybrid Kinetic Group, Wuzhoulong Motors and ITL for a Yangtse full-size bus in China and ADOMANI in the U.S. These customers will work in close collaboration with UQM, and suppliers Pi Innovo and Eaton, to develop heavy-duty commercial and transit all-electric vehicles, enabling them to rapidly deploy vehicles to market. The PowerPhase®DT will be delivered to early adopters this fall for pilot program deployment.
The UQM drivetrain in the PowerPhase®DT provides a greater speed and torque range than direct drive systems, allowing smaller electric motors to drive large vehicles. The new system also allows for improved packaging, greater efficiency, greater payload capacity and lower cost when compared with direct drive or single-speed drivetrain strategies.
“These key customers represent strategic markets, which will increase speed to market for this drivetrain,” said Joe Mitchell, President and CEO of UQM. “After extensively vetting many interested parties, UQM has selected these partners. They have all expressed a sincere desire to work with us on the initial launch, understand the advantages of the UQM PowerPhase®DT system and provide the market potential for significant volume utilizing this product solution. This is the ideal drivetrain solution for electric and range-extended commercial vehicles.”
PowerPhase®DT uses UQM’s current PowerPhase® HD220/HD250 motor and inverter system, Eaton’s two-speed transmission and Pi Innovo’s transmission control unit, creating a fully electric drivetrain system. This allows customers in the medium- and heavy-duty EV commercial markets to achieve increased performance in areas of gradability, acceleration and efficiency. The system also addresses the need for full transmission EV systems, as enhanced performance and efficiency requirements are mandated by customer drive cycles, battery costs and stringent environmental regulations.
As battery costs rapidly decrease, heavy-duty commercial and transit markets see the economic potential of electric drive vehicles compared to large diesel engines and multispeed transmissions. Fuel savings of pure electric vehicles (21 mpg equivalent) compared with traditional diesel (4 mpg) and hybrid systems (6 mpg) is enough to quickly recover the investment in an electric drive.
About UQM
UQM Technologies is a developer and manufacturer of power-dense, high-efficiency electric motors, generators, power electronic controllers and fuel cell compressors for the commercial truck, bus, automotive, marine, military and industrial markets. A major emphasis for UQM is developing propulsion systems for electric, hybrid electric, plug-in hybrid electric and fuel cell electric vehicles. UQM is TS 16949 and ISO 14001 certified and located in Longmont, Colorado. For more information, please visit www.uqm.com.
About Hybrid Kinetic Group Ltd.
Hybrid Kinetic Group Ltd. is a HKSE listed company (stock code: 01188), with its headquarters in Hong Kong and multiple subsidiary institutions throughout the world. Major businesses of HK Group that receive the most public attention include the development, manufacturing and marketing of new energy vehicles and their key components comprising energy battery, electric motor and electric control system. HK Group carries out the philosophy of our Chairman of the Board, Dr. Yeung Yung, advocating "technology leadership, phased development and combination of vehicles and financial innovation”. HK Group aims to bring revolutionary changes to the automotive industry and its marketing mode.
About Shenzhen Wuzhoulong Motors Co., Ltd.
Shenzhen Wuzhoulong Motors Group is a high-tech enterprise specializing in the manufacturing and exporting of different series buses and coaches, especially environment-friendly buses. With its headquarters in Shenzhen, Wuzhoulong has 3 branches, respectively in Chongqing, Shenyang and Guangdong Jieyang, totally covering 1.1 million square meters, employing 5,000 employees and enjoying an annual production capacity of 30,000 units. Characterized with Wuzhoulong new energy buses as its main products, Wuzhoulong has developed more than 150 varieties of products covering all bus fields, such as hybrid buses, pure electric buses, new energy buses, diesel buses and coaches. Its sales not only covers 20 provinces and cities in China, including Hong Kong, Macau, but also overseas districts and markets, such as America, Latin America, the Middle-east, and Africa, numbering over 40 countries.
About ADOMANI, Inc.
California-based ADOMANI, Inc. provides school bus and medium- to heavy-duty commercial fleet operators with replacement drivetrains and new purpose built zero-emission vehicles. ADOMANI brings together proven electric drivetrain technology, customized products, and trusted service partners to cut total cost of ownership, boost vehicle reliability, and unlock the many benefits of green technology. For more information, visit www.adomanielectric.com.
About ITL
ITL is an independent e-drive system supplier to the entire China market. Beyond the UQM supplied propulsion systems, ITL is responsible for the supply of transmissions, vehicle control units (VCU’s), DC/DC converters and other related components along with vehicle system integration, application and certification support.
This Release contains statements that constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act. These statements appear in a number of places in this Release and include statements regarding our plans, beliefs or current expectations; including those plans, beliefs and expectations of our management with respect to, among other things, gaining required certifications, new product developments, future orders to be received from our customers, sales of products from inventory, future financial results, liquidity, and the continued growth of the electric-powered vehicle industry. Important Risk Factors that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements are contained in our Form 10-K and Form 10-Q’s, which are available through our website at www.uqm.com or at www.sec.gov.
Source: UQM Technologies, Inc.
