New funding marks progress for Joule

The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) recently announced that it will invest R11.7 billion in Green Industries over the next five years, and that funding for the continued development and commercialisation of Joule has also been approved.

The Technology Innovation Agency (TIA), formerly the Innovation Fund, a function of the department of Science and Technology that has provided R105 million in seed capital to date, also announced that Optimal Energy will receive its final investment of R23 million very soon. Further support will now come from the department of Trade and Industry, which will focus on the successful commercialisation of Joule.

Discussions with EDAG, the German full-service supplier tasked with the industrialisation of Joule, have been making headway. A team will be arriving from Germany in the near future to proceed with the next phase leading to production. IDIADA, the Spanish firm tasked to assist Optimal Energy in complying with the stringent ECE safety standards, recently completed a series of meetings in Cape Town.

Optimal Energy has completed the Joule prototype phase with the completion of the HT4 test vehicle. Affectionately know as Spot, because of the spotty camouflage used to disguise its feature lines, it was designed specifically to operate as the next generation testing vehicle, and its sole purpose is to provide our engineers with feedback regarding battery performance, drive, handling and software.

The information received from Spot will be implemented in the production of the marketing fleet, which is currently underway. These vehicles will be used to gauge media and customer feedback, which in turn will be implemented in the production version of Joule.