Battery-charger system tailored for e-vehicles

BOULDER – Carl Lawrence foresaw the need for hybrid vehicles in the commercial market more than two decades ago.

Since then, the Boulder engineer and entrepreneur’s electric conversion plug-in systems and vehicle-to-grid battery chargers have made great inroads in the development of hybrid and electric vehicles.

Lawrence’s years of work developing an electric battery unit for commercial vehicles first paid off in 1997 when Denver’s Regional Transportation District awarded him a contract for a fleet of 26 electric-powered hybrid vehicles. Dubbed the “Columbine Bus,” Lawrence’s mini-vans took to the streets as the nation’s first large-scale use of hybrid technology in mass transportation.

In…