Following its debut at the North American International Auto Show, a demonstrator of the XH-150 Extreme Hybrid, developed by AFS Trinity Power Corporation and built under contract by Ricardo, has recently concluded a tour of the US culminating in an appearance at the Earth Day celebrations on Capitol Mall in Washington, D.C.
The cross-country tour was intended to enable the public in selected communities across the US the opportunity to test drive the two XH-150(tm) plug-in hybrid demonstrator vehicles.
According to tests recently conducted by AFS Trinity at the Michelin Proving Grounds in South Carolina, proprietary new power and control electronics and other advances allow the Extreme Hybrid to store sufficient power to run the vehicle at up to 87 mph. AFS Trinity predicts up to 150 mpg for the vehicle in a typical North American usage pattern - based on average driving patterns set by USEPA.
The Extreme Hybrid technology combines lithium-ion batteries and ultracapacitors with AFS Trinity's proprietary XH power and control electronics. Ricardos responsibilities in building the two demonstrator XH-150 vehicles included integrating AFS Trinity's proprietary power and control electronics module into the vehicles, incorporating off-the-shelf ultracapacitors and batteries selected by AFS Trinity, the design and development of a completely new Ricardo transmission for the vehicles, modifying the host vehicles' suspension and chassis control and, finally, vehicle build.
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