About Us
Tritium's mission is to produce high quality and innovative electric vehicle powertrains, while continuing to reduce their cost and size. Cost and size reductions are imperative to making electric vehicles a mass market reality.
Our team's history of product development demonstrates our strengths of creative thinking and implementing cutting edge technology. The management team has extensive practical business experience, including working closely with other start-up companies in the electric vehicle and solar industries. With this combination of creative and cutting edge engineering and honed business skills Tritium has become a highly professional company with a portfolio of novel and industry leading products.
Management Team
Dr David Finn, Managing Director
David brings leadership, passion and extensive business and technical knowhow to the team. Managing Director since the company's inception in 2001, David has overseen the negotiation and execution of many consulting contracts. During this time, David has grown Tritium's own product range and market share.
David holds a Bachelor of Engineering with honours and a Bachelor of Science, and in 2005 he graduated with a PhD in automotive powertrain electronics from the University of Queensland.
David maintains strong and vital interest in power electronic topologies, power semiconductors and their control systems.
James Kennedy, Engineering Director
James has specialised in embedded electronics design and manufacturing since 2000. James has been a key member of the Tritium team since helping found the company in 2001, and has directed engineering operations since 2005.
James holds a Bachelor of Engineering with honours from the University of Queensland and is a Registered Professional Engineer of Queensland.
Dr Paul Sernia, Non-executive Director
Paul has an established track record as a business analyst in number of boutique consulting firms in Australia and the UK. Working across a range of industries including finance and transport he has honed his skills in the commercialisation of various early-stage technologies.
He completed his PhD on power electronic modulation schemes in 2006 at the University of Queensland. He also holds a Bachelor of Computer Systems Engineering, a Bachelor of Science and is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Tritium is founded on a passion for innovative electronic systems that was first nurtured within the SunShark (University of Queensland) solar car racing team.
In 1998, this team was planning to defend its title as Australia's fastest solar car in the upcoming World Solar Challenge (WSC) and it was this goal that grabbed the attention of the now Tritium team, David Finn, James Kennedy and Paul Sernia. These beginnings were to spark a decade-long interest in renewable and energy efficient systems.
The WSC is a biennial international event for solar powered cars to race more than 3000 kilometres between Darwin and Adelaide — right across the Australian outback. The event has attracted many of the world's premier car makers with multi‐million dollar budgets who have competed alongside university and independent teams.
To maintain its position amongst such an esteemed field of competitors, the SunShark ‘99 project was necessarily ambitious. In the space of two years almost every part of the car was redesigned to be lighter, more efficient, or take advantage of new component technology.
David was appointed team leader of the electrical system redevelopment. By the time the SunShark hit the start line in Darwin, it had a new solar array, lithium-ion batteries, a custom battery monitoring system, custom telemetry system, custom motor controller and a custom “drive-by-wire” driver controls system.
SunShark finished third in the race, once again demonstrating how smart innovative ideas and good management can defeat big budgets.
One year later, David, James & Paul founded Tritium to commercialise the unique know-how they had gained through solar car racing. Tritium could have taken many paths during the early days of operation however the company was soon approached by another solar racing team that wanted a similarly light-weight and efficient motor controller to that seen in the SunShark solar car.
This resulted in the Gold Controller, which was quickly adopted by the majority of Australian solar racing teams as well as some international teams.
In 2005, Tritium was awarded a grant from the Queensland Sustainable Energy Innovation Fund (QSEIF) to further develop its motor controller technology. By the beginning of 2007, Tritium had it's flagship product, the WaveSculptor motor controller, ready for market.
In the lead-up to the 2007 World Solar Challenge, Tritium supplied WaveSculptors to approximately one third of race entrants. This event was a great success for the company, with 6 out of the top 10 competitors using a Tritium WaveSculptor, including the second and third placed teams.
Although Tritium's passion is for renewable and efficient power electronic systems, the company approaches any electronics engineering problem with similar enthusiasm.
