Vietnamese Scooter Maker to Use U.S.-Made Electric Motors in New Product Line
By Scott Doggett January 29, 2009
Scooter drivers awaiting a green light in Hanoi. The gas-powered vehicles are a big source of air pollution in Vietnam.
By Scott Doggett, Contributor
The leading Vietnamese-based scooter manufacturer, Sufat Co. Ltd., is developing a new line of scooters designed to integrate an innovative electric-motor system produced by U.S.-based KLD Motors America.
The deal with Sufat represents the first large-scale agreement for KMA of Austin, Texas, to produce its patented transmission-less motor system.
The motor system will enable Sufat's next-generation of scooters to perform as well as gas-powered scooters but without the noise or climate-changing emissions, said Christian Okonsky, chief executive of KLD Energy Technologies and KMA.
What's more, he said, KMA's motors will allow Sufat's scooters to reach and maintain speeds substantially better than traditional electric scooters.
Production of Sufat's new scooters is scheduled to begin during the fourth quarter of this year at the company's Hanoi facility, Dinh An, Sufat's vice general director, said in a statement.
The company hopes to make 50,000 of the KMA-propelled scooters in the first year of production. They will be available throughout Vietnam starting early next year.
Scooters are the primary mode of motorized transportation in Vietnam, with more than 22 million on Vietnamese roads. Most spew greenhouse gases and, collectively, they have created serious air-pollution problems in most of the country's cities.
Sufat's scooters with KMA's technology will be able to reach 50 miles per hour in less than 10 seconds with a typically slim Vietnamese rider aboard, Okonsky said, and as a transmission-less system, the two-wheeled vehicles will have a reduced cost of ownership.
KMA's motor system uses an innovative nano-crystalline composite material to conduct energy more efficiently than traditional, iron-core motors. The motor's high-frequency to low RPM ratio eliminates the need for a transmission.
The system's computerized motor controller is designed specifically for the higher-frequency output of the motor.
Okonsky must be pleased with the deal, because Vietnamese companies in general and the Vietnamese government on the whole is widely regarded throughout Asia as forward-thinking on the environmental front.
Other Asian companies and governments will no doubt take interest in Sufat's new product line, because gas-powered scooters are popular across the continent and because they contribute enormously to its air pollution.
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I hope this works out better than when the Japanese brought US televisions to their country (then stole the technology and used government funds to undercut US manufacturers).
Call me a pessimist. I'm grumpy. ;(
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