Cray Valley Resins and HFG Technology Make Electric Buses Lighter


Electric vehicles are intensively investigated all around the world to lower big city air pollution. To this purpose, the Korean company HFG developed an electric bus in cooperation with Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., at the request of Seoul city. The first electric non-step bus starts to run the 24th of June 2010 and 15 buses are expected to run in November 2010.

The battery system offers to run 120 km by 20 minutes instant battery-charging. This performance has been achieved thanks to the extensive use of composite materials.

Epoxy prepreg have been used for body parts and most of interior parts are made from EPOVIA® flame retardant vinyl ester (RF 2000 SE, Cray Valley) in combination with ARMORCOTE® / POLYCOR® gelcoat (superior weathering resistant gelcoat).

By adopting carbon-epoxy prepreg as car-body and fire-retardant vinyl ester GRP as interior parts, total weight is 25% lower than the conventional buses and driving cost is merely 100 KRW/km (0.07 Euros/km), so it is only one-fifth of CNG buses. Cray Valley is fully committed to develop new composite systems, enabling the extensive use of electric vehicle.

Part of Total's Chemicals branch, the group formed by CRAY VALLEY, COOK COMPOSITES & POLYMERS and SARTOMER is the leading resins manufacturer in the world, with sales of 1.5 billion euros in 2009 and 3600 employees worldwide.

www.crayvalley.com

Marketing Manager: Sébastien Taillemite, e-mail : composite.resins@crayvalley.com

Vinyl Ester Tech Manager: Jeongwoo Jeon, e- mail : jeongwoo.jeon@crayvalley.com

HFG is the nation's largest specialized company leading the composite industry and the main business areas in relation to composites developed by the company are: Fibreglass, GRP pipes, UST, LNG tanks, carbon pre-pregs, train vehicles, trams, non-step buses, aeronautics and the defense industry, all sectors incorporating fundamental materials and high-tech composites.

www.fiber-x.com

Chairman: Yong-Jun Cho, e-mail : yjcho@fiber-x.com

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