The 35-foot Proterra electric bus, which is powered by a PowerPhase® 150 electric propulsion system from UQM Technologies, was able to reach over 20 MPGe in fuel economy equivalency testing. The testing, which was conducted by Pennsylvania State University, simulated three different travel situations: central business district, arterial and commuter.

In the tests, Proterra’s electric bus scored as follows:

Central business district: 21.35 mpg

Arterial: 17.55 mpg

Commuter: 29.23 mpg

In a press release, executives from both Proterra and UQM commented on the results:

"The fuel economy performance of the FCBE 35 under these industry standard testing regimens dramatically exceeds the fuel economy of existing transit buses with a similar passenger carrying capacity and gross vehicle weight," said Jeff Granato, President of Proterra LLC. "The fuel economy of this lightweight transit vehicle was recently tested at Penn State’s Bus Testing and Research Institute. The test validated that Proterra’s 35-foot transit bus achieves up to 400 percent better performance than today’s conventional diesel or competitor’s hybrid transit buses. These fuel economy improvements together with the ability to extend total daily vehicle range through our TerraVolt rapid charge capability offers a tremendous advantage to transit operators who are looking to reduce both emissions and vehicle operating costs. A major factor in the ability of the FCBE 35 to achieve these exceptional fuel economy results is the highly energy efficient UQM® PowerPhase® 150 electric propulsion motor that has functioned flawlessly."

"Proterra continues to achieve spectacular performance and fuel economy with their FCBE 35 platform as is demonstrated by these independent test results from Penn State’s Transportation Institute," said William G. Rankin, UQM Technologies’ President and CEO. "We are pleased Proterra has selected our systems for this program and look forward to supplying their future motor and power electronic product requirements."