UQM Technologies Announces New Pilot Trial of PowerPhase® Electric Drivetrain System (DT) with European OEM Transit Bus Customer

UQM Technologies Inc. (NYSE MKT: UQM) announced today a European OEM will conduct a pilot trial of its full electric drivetrain solution, the PowerPhase^®DT. The OEM will be running two of the DT systems for evaluation with the long term goal of an all-electric transit bus production program.

The UQM drivetrain in the PowerPhase DT provides a greater speed and torque range than direct drive systems, allowing smaller electric motors to drive large vehicles. The UQM electric drivetrain system also allows for improved packaging, greater efficiency, greater payload capacity and lower cost when compared with direct drive or single-speed drivetrain strategies.

As battery costs rapidly decrease, heavy-duty commercial and transit markets see the economic potential of electric drive vehicles compared to large diesel engines and multispeed transmissions. Fuel savings of pure electric vehicles (>20 mpg equivalent) compared with traditional diesel (4 mpg) and hybrid systems (6 mpg) is enough to quickly recover the investment in an electric drive.

"With recent announcements in Europe and other markets about closing city centers to internal combustion and transitioning towards EV, we see the transit bus market as a key element to this important change,” said Joe Mitchell, President and CEO of UQM. "After considerable success in the US market with our customer Proterra, we are now bringing our technology to Europe with the potential for volume production contracts. This is the clean, quiet, efficient and affordable solution for electric and range-extended electric buses.”

The UQM PowerPhase DT pairs any of UQM’s PowerPhase HD propulsion systems with Eaton’s two-speed transmission and Pi Innovo’s transmission control unit. All combined, this is a bolt-on, fully electric drivetrain system. This turnkey approach allows customers in the medium- and heavy-duty EV commercial markets to achieve increased performance in areas of gradability, acceleration and efficiency. The UQM drivetrain also addresses the need for full transmission EV systems, as enhanced performance and efficiency requirements are mandated by customer drive cycles, battery costs and stringent environmental regulations.

About UQM

UQM Technologies is a developer and manufacturer of power-dense, high-efficiency electric motors, generators, power electronic controllers and fuel cell compressors for the commercial truck, bus, automotive, marine, and industrial markets. A major emphasis for UQM is developing propulsion systems for electric, hybrid electric, plug-in hybrid electric and fuel cell electric vehicles. UQM is TS 16949 and ISO 14001 certified and located in Longmont, Colorado. For more information, please visit www.uqm.com.

This Release contains statements that constitute "forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act. These statements appear in a number of places in this Release and include statements regarding our plans, beliefs or current expectations; including those plans, beliefs and expectations of our management with respect to, among other things, gaining required certifications, new product developments, future orders to be received from our customers, sales of products from inventory, future financial results, liquidity, and the continued growth of the electric-powered vehicle industry. Important Risk Factors that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements are contained in our Form 10-K and Form 10-Q’s, which are available through our website at www.uqm.com or at www.sec.gov.

Source: UQM Technologies, Inc.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170816005222/en/