A new, all-electric, 14-passenger shuttle-bus is currently in the development pipeline of Phoenix Motorcars.
Those of you familiar with the company will no doubt recall that it went bankrupt just a few years ago — and subsequently began a shift away from the development of light-duty vehicles. The new bus represents one of the company’s first offerings since that bankruptcy.
A press release provides some more details:
Phoenix Cars LLC., a leading developer of electric vehicle technologies for the fleet market, today announced the introduction of its modular, electric vehicle (EV) platform and it’s all new 14-passenger, all-electric shuttle bus focused on the US and international markets.
“Phoenix Cars LLC. worked very closely with its key technology partners to develop a compact and modular EV platform, which can be integrated into a diverse range of vehicle applications,” said Steven Davis, president, Phoenix Cars LLC. “The first Phoenix Cars product to utilize this platform is an all-electric shuttle bus that was designed expressly for use by commercial fleets. Our electric shuttle bus offers fleet owners an outstanding value proposition, because our shuttle costs significantly less to maintain and operate than traditional gas or Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) vehicles.”
The electric shuttle bus is powered by Phoenix’ new EV platform, which includes a proprietary vehicle controller, Remy™ permanent magnet traction motor, Sevcon™ motor inverter, and a Coslight™ lithium-ion battery pack and battery management system.
While it’s certainly good to see Phoenix Motorcars continue to chug-along and release new models, the market has gotten quite a bit more competitive in the last few years. The company will now have to contend with the likes of surging BYD (which, admittedly, doesn’t offer such a small electric bus yet but a more typical bus), and other, long-established companies like Volvo.
While on that subject, Volvo recently supplied the electric buses making up the Swedish city of Gothenburg’s new “ultra-modern” bus service, ElectriCity.
How would Phoenix Motorcars edge out companies like that? Or should it just look to carve out a different, highly specific niche?
Image Credit: Phoenix Motorcars
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