That’s 1,769 km without stopping to recharge and the bus is called Proterra Catalyst E2 Max
Meet Proterra Catalyst E2 Max, a battery-powered city bus that renders the claimed range of current EV cars ridiculous since it can travel a whopping 1,100 miles on a single charge, even when its fully laden with up to 40 passengers on board – that’s over four times further than a Chevrolet Bolt with its 238 mile official autonomy, for instance. It recently achieved a range of 1,101.2 miles, becoming the world's longest range EV.
You’d imagine it needs some kind of huge battery pack to achieve it and you’d be right – feeding the Catalyst E2’s electric motor is a hefty 660 kWh pack that seems huge by car standards, but then you remember itțs powering a 40-foot / 12-meter city bus weighing 33,000 lbs / 15 tons.
Its powertrain also allows it to reach a top speed of 65 mph / 104.5 km/h and sprint to 20 mph in 6.8 seconds.
According to its makes, the Catalyst E2 is now the world’s longest range electric vehicle after having beating the previous record set by a light-duty passenger car – the old record was 1,013 miles / 1,629 km.
Proterra, the company that makes the bus and also sells variants with smaller batteries, says buying one of these makes financial sense too. “With the incredibly low and very stable fuel cost that electricity offers, and significantly lower year-over-year maintenance costs resulting from having 30 percent fewer parts,” they say, adding that their “customers have the potential to achieve over $450,000 in operational savings per vehicle over 12 years.”
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