Ultracapacitor Bus Recharges At Each Stop

Posted by kdawson on Monday October 19, 2009 @12:25PM from the fill-er-up-with-electrons dept.

TechReviewAl writes "A US company and its Chinese partner are piloting a bus powered by ultracapacitors in Washington DC. Ultracapacitors lack the capacity of regular batteries but are considerably cheaper and can be recharge completely in under a minute. Sinautec Automobile Technologies, based in Arlington, VA, and its Chinese partner, Shanghai Aowei Technology Development Company, have spent the past three years demonstrating the approach with 17 municipal buses on the outskirts of Shanghai. The executive director of Sinautec touts the energy efficiency of this approach: 'Even if you use the dirtiest coal plant on the planet [to charge an ultracapacitor], it generates a third of the carbon dioxide of diesel.'"

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soundes extremely dangerous by yincrash · 2009-10-19 12:35 · Score: 0, Flamebait

isn't the voltage across ultracapacitors really large with a large charge? if that cap explodes, i could see it being very very bad.
also what about times when the bus doesn't need to pick up or drop of passengers? just stop the bus anyways?