SatCon Sees Increased Electric and Hybrid Electric Vehicle Business
SatCon Technology Corp.® announced that, over the past few months, in excess of $1.2 million in orders have been received for on-board vehicle components to support both domestic and international production builds of hybrid electric vehicles and electric vehicles in the off-road vehicle, heavy truck and specialty vehicle market segments.
"We were pleased to see that our electric and hybrid electric vehicle business is growing," said David Eisenhaure, SatCon President and Chief Executive Officer. "We are excited about our progress in becoming a significant supplier into the alternative energy market with our photovoltaic electronics. This continuing growth in our alternative fuel vehicle business is a good complement to that work. We all believe that we need to decrease the nation’s foreign oil dependency. Given that the country uses one-fourth of the world’s oil while possessing only 3% of its reserves, underscores for us at SatCon the critical need to develop alternative energy sources and efficiencies."
The company has been providing solutions for hybrid and electric vehicles for over 10 years. In 1998, SatCon acquired the Westinghouse/Northrop Grumman Electric Vehicle division – an established production manufacturer of hundreds of Chrysler EPIC minivan electric drive train systems and complete electric and hybrid electric conversions for truck and bus applications providing the company with solutions for traction drive systems, dc-dc converters, and battery charging systems. Through SatCon’s continued R&D contracts with the US government Departments of Defense and Energy the company has further advanced its solutions for high power density, efficiency, and low manufacturing cost potential for inverters, dc-dc converters, hybrid PM traction motors, integrated starter/generators, and generators. The company presently has active development contracts with the US Army for pulse chargers, battery chargers, generators, starter/generators, APUs, and associated drive electronics.
SatCon, under its Magmotor brand name, has released to production a product line of brushless dc motors and controllers ranging from 0.5 to 10hp at 300Vdc nominal for a variety of electric and hybrid electrical vehicle applications. These on-board vehicle applications include drive systems for power steering, HVAC systems, compressors, pumps and fans. The division also manufactures dc-dc converters for high voltage applications (300Vdc nominal to 12 or 24Vdc nominal).
