Overview

A history and overview of American Traction Systems

 

American Traction Systems (ATS) is a private, wholly American owned company specializing in the design and manufacturing of High Power AC and DC Motor Control products.

 

We have taken our experience of supplying controls for electric vehicles that haul 40+ tons of coal and miners in and out of coal mines to provide Propulsion Systems that operate reliably in the harshest conditions imaginable. Our successful designs include both on and off road electric vehicles such as Fuel Cell Buses and Automobiles, GenSet Locomotives, Passenger Vessels, Hybrid Trucks and Buses, Streetcars, Airline Ground Support Vehicles and electric vehicles of all types.

 

Founded in June 1992, ATS designs and manufactures solid state electric vehicle traction controllers powered by Batteries, Diesel or Gasoline Generators, Micro-Turbines, Fuel Cells and Power Centers. We have customers in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, South America and Australia. We have factory trained technicians in North America, Europe, South Africa and Australia.

 

The principal shareholder of ATS is Bonne W. Posma, who has over 40 years experience with the solid state control of AC and DC motors. Mr. Posma is also the CEO of Saminco, Inc, and Liquid Coal.

 

ATS employs over 100 people at multiple locations in North America. We have recently expanded to South Africa with manufacturing and service centers in Pretoria, Johannesburg and Cape Town.

 

ATS has over 20 years experience in building traction drives and has manufactured electric traction drives for Fuel Cell Buses designed by Ballard and Georgetown University, Hybrid-Electric systems for Allison Electric Drive division of General Motors as well as over 3,500 AC/DC and DC/DC controllers for underground mining vehicles. These include systems ranging in power from 5 kW to 2500 kW operating from 230V AC to 1000V AC or 80V DC to 1200V DC supplies.

 

We manufacture DC/AC converters to allow variable speed operation of 3-phase AC machines over a power range from 0.5kW through 2500kW. 

 

At ATS we have excellent in-house test facilities and 500 kVA of available power for testing traction drives up to 1MW. All design and manufacturing of our products is performed in our Fort Myers, Florida facility with the capacity to deliver production of several hundred units per month.

 

We have strong R & D capabilities and are presently building controllers for shunt DC motors, series DC motors, permanent magnet  motors, induction motors, induction generators, and diesel-electric vehicle traction drives up to 1MW.

 

Our track record of successful projects arises from our policy of understanding our customers’ requirements and then exceeding their expectations.