Nikola has selected PlusDriveto be incorporated into its hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) and Nikola Tre BEVs.
PlusDrive is said to offer ‘unmatched’ safety, fuel efficiency and various driver ‘comfort’ features and the first factory-installed FCEV to feature it will be available by the end of 2024.
The US company will demonstrate the PlusDrive-powered Nikola Tre BEV during rides at the Technology and Maintenance Council Annual Meeting and Transportation Technology Exhibition on February 27 in Orlando through to March 1.
David Liu, CEO and Co-Founder at Plus, said, “We are proud to support a zero-emission future and provide the underlying safety system behind Nikola’s enhanced driver assistance features.”
Don Christenson, Christenson Transportation President, said the company will play an active role in the launch of the innovative technology.
He added, “The Nikola PlusDrive enabled trucks, along with the current Nikola Tre BEV and hydrogen electric vehicle, will play a significant role in helping use achieve this vision and improve work, life balance for our drivers.”
Together with Nikola’s base technology, PlusDrive is claimed to moderate and predict optimal and safest speed, while also taking full advantage of regenerative braking in traffic and slowing conditions. It can handle staying centre in a lane, lane changes, merges, stop-and-go traffic and keep on top of automatic emergency breaks.
New driving features are continuously added over-the-air without any additional truck downtime and it will feature incident detection capabilities via the multiple cameras to be used together with short-range radar and LiDAR.
Last year, Nikola and IVECO launched the European Nikola Tre BEV and FCEV beta versions at IAA Transportation.
The BEV, which has a wheelbase of 4,021mm, features nine batteries with a total energy storage of up to 738kWh, delivers a range of up to 350km and an 80% charge takes an estimated 100 minutes at 350kW.
