14th January 2008

The North American International Auto Show has seen the launch of an XH-150 demonstrator vehicle showcasing AFS Trinity Power Corporation's Extreme HybridTM technology, and built by Ricardo under contract in five months. AFS Trinity Power's patent-pending Extreme Hybrid plug-in technology employs a proprietary dual energy storage system that combines lithium-Ion batteries and ultra capacitors with proprietary power and control electronics.

In mid July 2007, AFS Trinity Power asked Ricardo to help integrate the Extreme Hybrid system into two identical XH-150 demonstrators using two 2007 Saturn Vue Greenline SUVs as host vehicles.

Ricardo's responsibilities included integrating AFS Trinity's proprietary power and control electronics module into the vehicles, incorporating off-the-shelf ultracapacitors and batteries selected by AFS Trinity, design and development of a completely new transmission for the vehicles, modifying the host vehicles' suspension and chassis control and, finally, vehicle build.

During road tests carried out by AFS Trinity in December 2007 at Michelin's Laurens Proving Grounds in South Carolina, in simulated urban/highway conditions the XH-150 achieved an all-electric range of 41.9 miles and a top speed of 87 mph. In acceleration tests the company reports an all-electric 0-60 time of 11.6 seconds. In full hybrid mode, 0-60 acceleration time, was 6.9 seconds.