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When political winds shifted on EV mandates, Michiganbased company Optimal made a pragmatic pivot by launching a gasoline-powered version of its low-floor shuttle bus – a move reflecting decades of OEM-level engineering prowess and five years of EV-specific development experience. After completing a PhD at the University of Michigan, Dr Song Young founded the computer-aided engineering( CAE) company with the aim of developing and utilizing technology that optimizes the engineering process, the products and the manufacturing of each project.
Manufacturing Today magazine speaks with Executive Vice President, Jeff Hiatt, about the creation of Optimal, the coordination of product development globally, and why the company is the only low-floor electric shuttle manufacturer in North America.
“ When Dr. Young launched the company, it began working with a lot of the local OEMs in and around the Detroit area, helping them with crash simulation and lightweighting projects up until about 2016,” Jeff tells us.“ He then upgraded from solely delivering engineering services to being an OEM, and that’ s when Optimal EV was formed. We’ ve got a long history of engineering excellence in the Detroit area, which is a differentiator for us versus many of the other shuttle bus or specialty vehicle manufacturers.”
The gas-powered low-floor shuttle represents a strategic shift driven by political reality.“ With the current administration change and focus shifting from EV-centric into more alternative fuel-centric, we’ ve developed a low-floor gas product with the same body and chassis, but basically just a gasoline version,” Jeff explains.“ During the previous administrations, there was a heavy
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