JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #109 - November/December 2016 - 4

OPlNlON public transportation

Nanotechnology Centre of Composites

"Electric vehicles will prevail in the
urban public transportation system"
NCC and evopro was awarded for its self-supporting, modular,
full composite body on JEC World, Paris, 2016. Designed by
Hungary's evopro and manufactured by Russia's NCC, Modulo is a
purely electric drive vehicle made for the Budapest Transportation
Company (BKV). Peter Molnar, Technical Director at NCC, gives us
his feedback on this ambitious project.

Peter Molnar: I'm graduated as
Economist and Mechanical Engineer with
the specialisation of polymer engineering
and obtained the Ph.D. degree in area of
composite engineering at the Technical
University Kaiserslautern, in Germany. My
research activities was the development
of preforming techniques for Liquid
Composite Moulding Technologies under
the leadership of Prof. Peter Mitschang,
in the Institute of Composite Materials
(IVW GmbH). I decided to join to the
Holding Company Composite (HCC), in
Russia in 2011, which established the NCC
(Nanotechnology Centre of Composites)
in 2012, together with the Fund for
Infrastructure and Educational Programs of
the Russian state owned company Rosnano.
Two years later, the DowAksa acquired the
1/3 portion of the NCC property.
My main responsibilities in the
NCC are the determination of the
scientific and technical activities of the
development programs, the coordination
of the production, but coordinated the
development of the equipment park too.
I'm active in the business development as
well and interacting with customers and
partners, if required. As a technical director
I'm providing direct administration of the
technical staff of the company.
JCM: What are the objectives and added value of the solutions offered by NCC?

P. M.: NCC is responsible for the
development and manufacturing of
polymer composite products. The company

4

Peter Molnar
Technical Director
Nanotechnology
Centre of Composites

is mainly focused on infrastructural and
automotive products and can provide
comprehensive engineering services
from conceptual design to low series
manufacturing, including testing and
certification, based on its well-equipped
laboratories. NCC possesses a very
modern equipment park for a wide range
of technologies, including pultrusion,
filament winding, liquid composite
moulding technologies, RIM and LFI,
compression moulding technologies,
injection moulding and more. Based on
these and the resourceful and dynamically
growing team, NCC is able to provide
engineering services even for such special
projects, like the full composite bus body
development program.

"

JEC Composites Magazine: What was your
career path before joining NCC? Can you describe your current responsibilities there?

with

Tesla shows that a fresh and
innovative concept from a
newcomer can bring great changes.

JCM: You distinguished yourself by winning
an award during JEC World 2016 thanks
to Modulo. How was this urban transport
project born?

P. M.: The modulo bus concept was born

in Hungary, developed by evopro Group,
led by Antal Varga, Chief Engineer. Earlier
evopro had been active mostly in industrial
informatics and automation and provided
its services mainly for automotive OEMs,
but was always committed for innovation
and green vehicle concepts. They started
the bus development program in 2012
with the clear vision that the development
of zero emission city transportation is not
only inevitable, but this is the area, where

jec composites magazine / No109 November - December 2016

a smaller, but very innovative and flexible
company is able to compete with huge
OEMs. Electric urban transportation is
relatively new for all bus manufacturers
and the very nice example of Tesla shows
that a fresh and innovative concept from
a newcomer can bring great changes.
Nevertheless the Modulo bus is designed
not only for full electric drive, but can be
delivered with diesel or CNG engines and
as a trolley-bus as well.
JCM: To what extent have composite
materials been determinant in your
approach?

P. M.: The energy and cost efficient
public transportation is very important to
reduce the emission in the cities, because
it can substitute a lot of personal vehicles.
For the sake of cost and energy efficiency,
bus operators are seeking for low fuel
consumption and smart body design
to provide more place and comfort for
passengers and they want to achieve low
passenger-cost / km ratio. Since in city
transportation vehicles must typically be
accelerated and stopped, in every 200300m, the weight of the body is an extremely
important factor in energy consumption.
In the case of combustion engine driven
buses each saved 100 kg of the body weight
means more deliverable passengers or
saved litres in fuel consumption. Although
battery technologies are developing
quickly, recently the required package is
very heavy, which must be compensated.
The combination of the traditional metal
body and electric drive results in a very
heavy body, which requires stronger and
heavier axels and suspension system. This
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #109 - November/December 2016
