AFS Trinity Power Corporation is an American corporation headquartered in Medina, WA with an engineering center in Livermore, CA that develops technology for

plug-in hybrid A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) is a hybrid electric vehicle whose battery pack can be recharged by plugging a charging cable into an external electric power source, in addition to internally by its on-board internal combustion engin ...

s. The company has developed

PHEV A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) is a hybrid electric vehicle whose battery pack can be recharged by plugging a charging cable into an external electric power source, in addition to internally by its on-board internal combustion engin ...

technology that actively combines batteries with

ultracapacitor A supercapacitor (SC), also called an ultracapacitor, is a high-capacity capacitor, with a capacitance value much higher than other capacitors but with lower voltage limits. It bridges the gap between electrolytic capacitors and rechargeable b ...

s. The company asserts that the combination of high-power ultracapacitors, which prefer to discharge and recharge quickly, and high-energy lithium-ion batteries, which prefer to discharge and recharge slowly, makes for a system with both long-life and high energy-density storage. EV World, AFS Trinity Perfects Plug-in Hybrid Saturn Vue, January 13, 2008

Prototype

AFS Trinity claims that this "Extreme Hybrid" technology makes it possible for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles to achieve the equivalent of , travel per charge in all-electric mode and use gasoline for additional range (limited by gasoline tank size) in hybrid mode. The company also reports that its prototype "XH-150S" modified Saturn Vue SUVs demonstrated 11.6 second 0-60 performance in electric-only mode and 6.9 second 0-60 performance in full hybrid mode, which would be comparable to a Porsche Cayenne. AFS Trinity's Extreme Hybrid prototypes have been test-driven by journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC World News, CBS Evening News, CNN, and Salon.

History

AFS Trinity was formed on December 5, 2000, through the combination of two predecessor companies, American Flywheel Systems, Inc. (AFS), incorporated in 1991, and Trinity Flywheel Power (Trinity) which was incorporated in 1993. Since 1991, AFS Trinity has conducted programs with private and government organizations including

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adv ...

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

, the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army,

U.S. DOT The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT or DOT) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is headed by the secretary of transportation, who reports directly to the President of the United States and ...

, California Energy Commission, Oak Ridge National Laboratories, Lawrence Livermore National Labs,

Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...

, Lockheed, and Ricardo plc. On January 24, 2006, AFS Trinity and Ricardo signed a Technology Partnership Agreement for Ricardo to help integrate AFS Trinity's Extreme Hybrid drive train technology into passenger cars and SUVs. On January 27, 2008, the company unveiled two modified Saturn Vue SUVs (called XH-150 SUV) at the

North American International Auto Show The North American International Auto Show (NAIAS), also known as the Detroit Auto Show as of 2022 and prior to NAIAS, is an annual auto show held in Detroit, Michigan, U.S., at Huntington Place. The show was held in January from 1989 to 2019. ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

. On January 26, 2010, AFS Trinity demonstrated its prototypes for Delaware officials including Governor Jack Markell, suggesting that Delaware's idled factories and workforce could potentially mass-produce the vehicle.

Technology

The powertrain using two forms of energy storage is disclosed in US patent application 11/519,350. The application describes a family of architectures where a battery is used in conjunction with a second energy storage device which may be an

, a

flywheel A flywheel is a mechanical device which uses the conservation of angular momentum to store rotational energy; a form of kinetic energy proportional to the product of its moment of inertia and the square of its rotational speed. In particular, ass ...

, or a second battery. The purpose of the second energy storage device is to protect the battery from high current during high power operation.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Afs Trinity Plug-in hybrid vehicle industry