EEVblog #1339 - Looking at an Electric Bus

[EEVblog]

Dave visits Transit Systems to take a look at a fully electric bus with a 328kWh battery back running on regular Sydney bus routes. How does it compare to an electric car?
https://www.transitsystems.com.au/electric-buses



Full Video on EEVdiscover:

[ndp]

Pretty cool.

The fire departments around me (California Bay Area) had been showing this electric fire engine off as a potential buy. I think they decided against it because the amount of time you can run it purely on battery is relatively low before a diesel generator kicks in, as well as it being a lot smaller than a traditional fire engine here in the states (less storage space for hose, water, equipment, etc.)

https://innovation.rosenbauer.com/en/concept-fire-truck/

[Miyuki]

This is also interesting alternative
They are testing it here in Prague

It have just a "small" 47 kWh LTO battery
And use overhead charging at end stations and power on steep hills
So no need to have cables on roads and huge batteries in buses

 

[GoneTomorrow]

We've had a small fleet of BEV busses doing the rounds in Christchurch NZ for a bit over a year too. Bit more loud and proud with the branding though. 25 more due next year.

Pretty much 100% of the electricity in the South Island comes from hydro so there's really quite an impact switching from diesel.

[Orips]

Posted this in the Youtube comments but thought it might get more interest here. Definitely worth watching. Sydney trialed an electric bus 40 years ago! Check out this episode of Torque - an 80s Australian motoring TV show hosted by Peter Wherrett https://youtu.be/PZdTJ2oUQS4?t=901

If this was a printed article dated 2020 you wouldn't suspect if was really from the early 80s - same concerns about pollution in the cities, battery charging/swapping and bureaucratic BS.

[Rerouter]

I oversee analytics on a few of these buses, the BYD model on sloped but mostly flat areas was averaging very consistently around 85 KWh per 100KM for average speeds around 30kmph (city traffic),

Attached is some of the raw data if anyone is curious, sadly pulling the slope data for the trips would be dipping a tad too far into revealing who owns them.

I have no clue where they pull the fraction of a cent per KM number from, based on even large scale rates, at 0.85KWh per KM, your still going to be paying multiple cents per km,

Standard buses end up around 33 Litres per 100KM of diesel for equivalent sized buses, Hybrids about 26. so 0.26 to 0.33 Liters per KM, Liquid fuels cost more, that is a given, but the gap is narrower than some would say.

[GoneTomorrow]

Looking at the context of the 0.01c/km statement, seems like he might just be referring to maintenance and repair costs. Sure he did say operating cost, but immediately before and after he was talking about repairs. Given that they're under warranty currently, that number will go up significantly once they're out of warranty and start to get a bit tired.

[VK3DRB]

The no-pollution stuff is a bit of a fudge. The amount of pollution to produce a new car is significant, whether it be electric or combustion engine. There should be incentives for people with money NOT to buy a new car, except maybe to change to an electric vehicle. Where I live most people buy a new car to save face - this consumerist mentality does nothing for our planet.

There is plenty of lithium around - for now. The lithium raw material in a Li-ion battery is less than 1% of the battery cost. A $10,000 battery for a plug-in hybrid contains less than $100 worth of lithium. Rather than worrying about a lack of lithium, there could be shortages of rare earth materials, should the EV replace the conventional car. One such material is the permanent magnet for the electric motors. Permanent magnets make one of the most energy-efficient motors. China controls about 95 percent of the global market for rare earth metals and expects to use most of these resources for its own production. Export of rare earth materials is tightly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. So where does Tesla get its rare earth magnets from?

[NiHaoMike]

Perfectly good cars usually aren't discarded, rather they're resold and continue to be used until they're no longer economical to keep running. I do think they should require all new cars to get at least 35 MPG or so highway, to at least partially offset the environmental impact of manufacturing.

Tesla has been using induction motors in the Model S, which do not use permanent magnets. They could easily go back to that if it ends up more economic.

[Circlotron]

With those big batteries on the roof, I wonder if they have done a crash test going under a low bridge? 

http://11foot8.com/

[SeoulBigChris]

I’d be curious for a follow-up report from this depot to see how things are going four years on. I found this tour so fascinating back in 2020 I wonder why we’re not seeing this transition to electric coaches in all cities.

[EEVblog]

I’d be curious for a follow-up report from this depot to see how things are going four years on. I found this tour so fascinating back in 2020 I wonder why we’re not seeing this transition to electric coaches in all cities.

They have expanded the fleet and offered me another tour. I'm not sure there would be anything new to show though?

[aeberbach]

Which vehicles are still in service, how has distance per charge changed over that time?
What has the cost been, did they actually save money compared to having conventional diesels over that same period and usage?

[steve30]

I also enjoyed the tour, so would be interested to see a follow up. My local area got its first new electric buses recently, so time will tell how well they work .

[max_torque]

We are now a good few years into the EV bus transition in the UK, and having worked on some of the pilot and early projects it's interesting to hear the operators thoughts now, a few years later. And no1 on the list is "reliability" especially due to the lack of having a transmission and having regen!

An Urban bus is, fairly obviously, stopping and starting a lot, and spends most of its time in low gears, and braking to a halt, especially if the driver wants to not hold up other traffic by coasting down to a stop.

When we look at transmissions, they get an absolute kicking, especially as wear means backlash, and then the engine torque gets applied with a bang, that then stresses everything else. lets face it, few of our bus journeys on derv busses can honestly be described as smooth, even with the modern multi-ratio automatic trans models.

So, with no gears to shift, and the ability to smoothly and rapidly stop, what operators seem to be reporting is an absolutely massively reduced maintance burden and much higher fleet reliability and "up time"

This adds to a lower running cost, and makes operators and passengers happy 

[TimFox]

Chicago's topography is quite flat.
The CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) is testing electric buses, now on two routes.
Their website  https://www.transitchicago.com/electricbus/  includes links to studies and status reports.