Hyundai Worldwide Global Navigation
The first of its kind in Korea, the bus will be put on a trial next year. Now ready for commercialization, the bus can run for 120km after each charging (running at 100km/h). HMC has succeeded in developing its own unique bus running on electricity. The trial began on June 22. Named ‘Elec-City,’ the bus design is modelled after the standard in-city buses regulated by the Ministry of Land and Maritime Affairs. Running at 100km per hour, it can run for 120km after each charging. The bus runs on 3 100kW-motors and has a horsepower of 402. The ‘back-plate’ capacity is one of the critical factors in measuring the drivability of standard in-city buses. Elec-City has achieved the back-plate capacity of 31%, equivalent to the standard CNG (compressed natural gas) in-city buses. The new bus costs only about 29% of what it costs to drive a normal, gas-run standard bus.
HMC will further decrease the maintenance cost of the bus, by improving the durability of such major parts as the battery, the motor and the controller. The company also became the first in Korea to apply the ‘semi-monocork body’ design, since the bus will have to carry a large-capacity battery (1.4t in weight) on the top. The new design not only improves the overall durability of the bus, but also improves the reliability of the finished product by minimizing assembly errors.
After the trial, HMC will actually run ElecCity buses on the roads around the Namyang Research Center. Depending on the governmental or local administrative policy, HMC will begin to run the bus on some of the major incity routes beginning in 2011, aiming at mass production by 2012.
HMC is preparing for a variety of marketing activities to aid the successful launching of the bus. It will actively advertise the great bene?ts of this great environment-friendly bus by running it in Seoul and using as shuttle for the G20 summit.
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