Proterra Electric Bus Test Ride

  • January 18th, 2023

As you may have been informed in August 2022, an interdisciplinary faculty team consisting of 11 faculty and staff won a $10 million (20% cost share) Federal Transit Award grant for electrifying the Crimson Ride Transit bus fleet: https://news.ua.edu/2022/08/federal-award-to-help-ua-electrify-crimson-ride/#:~:text=TUSCALOOSA%2C%20Ala.,for%20the%20electric%20vehicle%20ecosystem. The award will enable the purchase of eight electric buses, medium and high power charging stations and fund work force training. We will outfit these buses with data loggers to evaluate state of charge (SOC), state of health (SOH), module and pack temperatures, operational speed profiles, energy consumption and much more. Additionally, we plan to instrument the buses with cellular radios for connectivity (C-V2X), and radios also on multiple intersections on the campus route. This will help us to improve safety and traffic flow in congested corridors. We will gain tremendous real world experience and possess a rich set of operational data for future research projects.

As a first prototype test, we have organized a visit of a potential electric bus supplier, Proterra, to the UA campus on Thursday, January 19th. We invite you to test ride the vehicle on a campus route. We will run the bus every full hour from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm and again from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm. Please feel free to test ride the vehicle at your convenience within this time frame. The ride will take you approximately 0.5 hours and will start at the Crimson Ride Transit Hub. The following project team members, their department affiliation and their research focus as listed below will support you during your visit:

9:00 am             Dr. B, CAVT-COE and CMRDO-ATI, EV-Systems

10:00 am          Dr. Nathan Jeong, Connectivity and C-V2X

11:00 am          Dr. Josh Bittle, ME, Energy Management and Optimization

1:00 pm             Dr. Xinwu Qian, CCEE, Routing and Optimization

2:00 pm             Dr. Jaber Abu-Qahouq, ECE, Battery Management and State of Health

3:00 pm            Dr. B, CAVT-COE and CMRDO-ATI, EV-Systems

James Knickrehm, Associate Director of Crimson Ride Operations, is UA’s primary point of contact for the test ride. These are exciting times and we thank you for your participation.