We are fortunate to have been able obtain this unique experimental diesel/electric powered vehicle originally built for the RET, Rotterdam's public transit company. After having been decommissioned at the conclusion of the testing period by RET, it spent considerable time at Bustech B.V. in Veldhoven, where it was being readied for delivery to us by Niek Smink, one of the guiding forces behind the original X97 project. On April 6th 2004 it was finally delivered to us to be transformed into the e-Traction® Bus, our first company owned state of the art Technology Demonstrator bus.

We were able to secure financial support of Senter/Novem, as part of its DEMO program for energy efficient transportation, in order to rejuvenate and revitalize this vehicle . Specially with this vehicle in mind it was decided in October 2003 to develop the new TheWheel™ SM500/2 system which, because of its much smaller diameter, does not require the same invasive conversion work as was needed in the Ambassador type bus of VDL Berkhof for the town of Apeldoorn, which you find elsewhere on this site under the banner the Whisper®.     

The lightweight body of the e-Traction® Bus was developed and constructed by the now defunct Fokker aircraft manufacturing company. Vehicle completion and homologation was performed by the similarly defunct Den Ousten coach manufacturing company. The patented composite ALIMO technology is now owned by Stork Fokker AESP.  We initially intended thought to convert only the rear axle to be able to receive TheWheel™ SM500/2 motors and bring the system and electronics up to our much higher standards. Whereas the X97 arrived with an auxiliary power supply installed, the entire configuration and its management were completely altered. In the end virtually all of the electronic components were replaced or altered. Plans are currently in an advance stage of development to also power the front wheels in the Fall of 2005 in order to demonstrate a 4 wheel drive all weather bus for mountainous terrain.