Presented by Max Pfeiffer
Recap by guest-contributor Atinuke Ademola-Idowu, PhD Candidate, Electrical Engineering, University of Washington Seattle
The current manufacturing statistics of hybrid electric cargo vans is ~20/year compared to 400,000/year for fuel powered cargo. Maxwell Vehicles focus is on producing Range Extended Electric Van (RHEV) which is built using recycled component, that is combining bad body, good powertrain electric vehicles with good body, bad powertrain cargo vans. This reduces the CO2 emissions and costs less (lowers operating cost by 75%) compared to a fully electric cargo and gas-powered cargo vans. Their current cargo vans are plug-in hybrid built on GM’s powertrain with about 40 miles of electric range and 33MPG(City). The future plan is to shift focus to electric cargo van (ECV) which has a bigger market than hybrid vans and can provide a 150-200 miles range while lowering operating cost by 80%. This process will be made possible by parity payload and Incentives provided by California.