The Solano County Transit (SolTrans) Board, Solano Transportation Authority (STA) and Momentum Dynamics are celebrating Solano County’s first battery-electric highway bus and wireless inductive charger.
The launch is taking place today, on 27 September, at the SolTrans Curtola Park & Ride Hub in Vallejo, California.
Momentum Dynamics installed the inductive charging system at the SolTrans Curtola Park & Ride Hub last winter to provide frequent incremental charges to SolTrans’s new BYD electric bus.
The inductive technology allows the bus to automatically charge while passengers load and unload from the vehicle. This will increase the bus’s range in addition to it being plugged in to charge at the SolTrans operations and maintenance facility when not in service.
Beth Kranda, SolTrans Executive Director said:We are so proud to bring this technology and zero-emission bus to Solano County. The new BYD bus joins 4 other all-electric buses we already have in operation on our local service. We are committed to bringing ambitious clean air strategies to our county’s public transportation system, this is SolTrans’s next step in becoming fully zero-emission and improving the air quality in Solano County and beyond.
The wireless inductive charger was funded with Transportation Development Act (TDA) funds and assistance from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, Transportation Fund for Clean Air (TFCA) grant funds.
Meanwhile, the BYD bus was funded through the Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program with the help from the STA.
The all-electric BYD bus will be piloted on the SolanoExpress Yellow Line this winter.
