I came across this company called BYD.
They have a full line of 100% electric buses that look pretty good.
The question is how well will they hold up long term and how long will they really go on a single charge.
Sadly, I predict that many of these will run out of juice and konk out along the interstate leaving a bunch of PO'd people waiting for a diesel powered bus to pick them up.
http://www.byd.com/usa/bus/ (http://www.byd.com/usa/bus/)
These guys make busses around the corner from me:
https://www.proterra.com/ (https://www.proterra.com/)
I often see unmarked or prototype units running around here.
The Chinese bus says that it will accept the same amount of electric power as will light up 3000 100-watt bulbs for charging and charge enough in 1 - 1.5 hours to run more than 150 miles. I remember my mama telling me about things "too good to be true".
Complete Coach Works in Riverside, CA is also strong in the electric bus market. They are one of the leading companies in the US converting diesel burners to electric buses for cities around the country. They have posted several press releases about this on their website. Jay Leno also did an interesting story on YouTube recently about these buses which you can check out here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVXWGBgYj3M. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVXWGBgYj3M.)
An all electric bus for the bus conversion market is still quite a few years away but with the newer batteries being developed, this may soon be the wave of the future. The concern that cities has now is that they are not sure the electrical infrastructure can handle charging all of the electric cars they plan to have in the next few years and I am not sure I want to wait in line at a charging station for an hour for a place to plug in my car to recharge it on a trip. But for public transit systems, this seems like an ideal solution for a cleaner environment.
But it won't be long before RV parks will have a method of charging electric buses and there will be enough of them scattered around the country so you can travel across the U.S. and charge up your bus every day with enough juice due to better batteries to go 500 or more miles on a charge to make this feasible.
But don't let this deter you from tuning up your diesel burner bus now because it will be a few more years until electric buses are feasible for the bus conversion market, but start using up your motor oil because you won't need to change the oil as often in your new electric bus. :D
Gary
Great video, Gary. PM me your ganga dealer - it's going to be more than a "few" years before we busnuts could affordably convert to battery powered bus conversions. Given the start point is $500,000 in conversion cost, 120 mile range, and a 480 volt 100 amp charger.... we need triple the range OTR and 10% of the costs ..... send that number asap. LOL Seriously, nice story as it demonstrates limited commercial viability today.
I kind of like having an old diesel. My 6v92 isn't fast but she's steady.
500 mile range. Tesla is already there with 80,000 lb. tractor Trailers. Buses won't be far behind. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-unveils-sleek-electric-big-rig-with-500-mile-range-2017-11-17 (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-unveils-sleek-electric-big-rig-with-500-mile-range-2017-11-17)
Let's wait for a real trucking outfit to run the Tesla around the block for more than a publicity and share boosting picture opportunity?
I am reminded of all the "ATOMIC" buzz in the 50's...
Still waiting for that elusive million mile auto with on-board reactor, and Panama Canal was not widened with "nuclear mining" as Reader's Digest anticipated, circa 1960...
Yes, the busnut will benefit from trickle down technology, we will run a margarita mixer off some lithium cast offs...
An auspicious use of the cutting edge?
happy coaching!
buswarrior
I really have to wonder how an electric bus (or truck) will handle a heavy A/C load, or provide heat. The last truck tractor I had was equipped with battery powered A/C for the sleeper, but it could not keep me cool when parked in the sun (truck drivers don't always get to sleep at night).
There will be recharge stations along the route. Fast full recharge. The city busses are recharging at the end of theirs lines.
I remember when we were dealing with kilobytes of memory in our old 8086 computers and thought a gigabyte would never happen in our lifetime. With that said, I wouldn't rule out a battery conversion for buses with diesel scented air fresheners just to remember the good old days. Or how about Mother Earth News in the 70's and the battery powered Pinto complete with plans. :o
I've got an idea. How about having a bus run instead with steel wheels on some steel rails to lower its rolling resistance, and it could also pick up power along the way from some electric wires, maybe suspended above? Nah, that will never work . . .
John
Hey that's an excellent idea John!!! Then they...oh...they did that already and that's the reason why buses were proven to be more popular because they can go anywhere a car can.
I too wonder how long a charge can last given the extreme heat or cold with heaters or AC going full blast.
Then what happens if they get in a traffic jam on the freeway in the middle of winter. They'll long for a diesel then.
Someday these things will be as reliable as internal combustion is now. I believe it but it's going to take longer than just a few years maybe a decade or more.
Kinda think this is old news to be honest. The city where I live for example has had a fleet of 100% electric buses for ages and I see them running-about all the time, and I'm sure many other cities have them too. I've just looked it up and see that the operator local to me started using them in 2012 and now have a fleet of 45 all-electric buses. The article I've just read was from 2016 and was actually about when the most recent batch of 13 BYD buses they bought (never heard of them, but apparently it's a Chinese builder) had collectively reached the 1 million mile mark.
Obviously there will be times when electric buses are a good idea and times when they aren't - but as a concept they are well established and proven in many places.
But - if rather than city buses you're actually talking about long-distance all-electric coaches then that's a different kettle-of-fish altogether - that WOULD be much more equivalent to the Tesla truck - or the Thor truck or any of the other manufacturers who've been developing battery-powered Semis for a while and are now really pissed-off that everyone thinks Tesla invented the idea and is the only game in town
Jeremy
Tesla (and Thor), be warned! https://uk.news.yahoo.com/germany-started-building-first-motorway-electric-lorries-154736773.html So, logically, why couldn't one have fleets of long-distance electric buses pulling power from overhead wires for the long-haul, and then using smaller on-board batteries for around-town local driving?
John
I am having a hard time doing the math. Seems to me a transit coach in stop and go urban service in the hard wintertime ... or the hot muggy summertime might consume more energy heating, defrosting and cooling than the actual road route.
Are the new batteries that good? What is the weight per KWH for current storage batteries used in 100% electric bus service? I used to drive blue sled GMC urban transit buses years ago. Extremely difficult and hard service. Stop and go.
Do the new 100% electric buses have regenerative braking as well as conventional brakes? We had to run 100% throttle accelerating and 100% braking to maintain the route schedule. Extremely hard on the equipment and not safe. Years ago.
Quote from: Iceni John on December 20, 2017, 05:13:35 PM
Tesla (and Thor), be warned! https://uk.news.yahoo.com/germany-started-building-first-motorway-electric-lorries-154736773.html So, logically, why couldn't one have fleets of long-distance electric buses pulling power from overhead wires for the long-haul, and then using smaller on-board batteries for around-town local driving?
John
Well of course trolleybuses (conventional buses with rubber tyres but with pantographs) have been around as long as trams, and have also seen a recent resurgence - but running them long-distance down motorways fitted with overhead cables, yes that would be a logical step. But as always it's paying for the infrastructure that always holds back new vehicle technologies and even in this day-and-age many countries still haven't fully electrified their railway networks yet, never mind starting on the roads too. But it's a good ambition
Jeremy
I foresee electric buses towing 250kW diesel generators for power. No road tax on fuel.
Why here in Ca. they wouldn't cost anything to buy, build or fuel. What could be better than free? That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. Jack
Hybrids seem to be the best option for any sort of electric bus now. That way there is little worry about running out of juice.
John, I really hope you were joking or else had a bad cold and that was a result of a weird dream when you said that about over head wires on freeways. :) The cost would be insane. Some rail buffs think that should be the norm for locomotives but the cost would prohibit that.
Quote from: CrabbyMilton on December 21, 2017, 03:57:07 AM
Hybrids seem to be the best option for any sort of electric bus now. That way there is little worry about running out of juice.
John, I really hope you were joking or else had a bad cold and that was a result of a weird dream when you said that about over head wires on freeways. :) The cost would be insane. Some rail buffs think that should be the norm for locomotives but the cost would prohibit that.
Not a weird dream, it's happening - click the link that John gave.
And electrified railway systems ARE the norm in most developed countries.
Quote from: Geoff on December 20, 2017, 07:01:00 PM
I foresee electric buses towing 250kW diesel generators for power. No road tax on fuel.
You're supposed to pay duty on any fuel used for road use - it's never occurred to me to wonder how that works with electricity, but certainly for veg oil and propane etc you're theoretically supposed to record your usage and post a cheque to the taxman.
Jeremy
True but just because it works over in Europe doesn't mean it will work here.
Most of those countries are socialist to the point that makes Bernie Sanders look like a conservative in that there is little to no private sector capitalism. Railroads are not going to spend tons of money just to please the electric crowd over here. Guess who would have to pay for that if they ever did that? You got it. What happens if one of those trucks has to get around an accident? They would have to be towed back to the line and with that, delays, extra costs, and PO's customers.
Besides, a diesel locomotive has such a nice sound that can't be matched with an electric version.
Quote from: CrabbyMilton on December 21, 2017, 05:30:06 AM
True but just because it works over in Europe doesn't mean it will work here.
Most of those countries are socialist to the point that makes Bernie Sanders look like a conservative in that there is little to no private sector capitalism. Railroads are not going to spend tons of money just to please the electric crowd over here. Guess who would have to pay for that if they ever did that? You got it. What happens if one of those trucks has to get around an accident? They would have to be towed back to the line and with that, delays, extra costs, and PO's customers.
Besides, a diesel locomotive has such a nice sound that can't be matched with an electric version.
How can you call utilization of tax revenue in a manner that the people approve socialism ?
Quote from: CrabbyMilton on December 21, 2017, 05:30:06 AM
Most of those countries are socialist..
Wow, who knew? ???
And for the record, I did deliberately say 'most developed countries' and not 'Europe'. Think of Japan, Taiwan, South Korean and all those hugely productive and rampantly capitalist tiger economies in the Far East - do they have such highly developed railway systems because they're all socialist too? And if so, perhaps socialism isn't actually what you think it is? Or perhaps it just works much better than you think it does?
For the record (and leaving aside physical issues such as the distances to be traveled), having an electrified railway system has absolutely
nothing to do with whether your government happens to be left-wing or right-wing and
everything to do with whether the country's railway system is regarded as being an important national asset (such as the road network), or something from the past which can be allowed to decline and die (such as the canal networks in some countries). Using the 'socialist' argument you might equally well say that national governments shouldn't be paying for tarmac and concrete to modernise the road network.
Again for the record, the UK (for example) has a right-wing capitalist government, and all railway freight and passenger services are run by profit-making private companies. But the railway network, just like the road network that's also used by private freight and passenger services, is paid-for nationally. Seems logical to me.
Jeremy
Because the govt. owns a large part of many European companies. Competition is a bad thing over there.
If that's not socialism I don't know what is.
Americans love freedom. Freedom to drive our cars, buses and trucks directly to our destination.
I have nothing against rail and air but it must not be owned by the govt.
Let the market decide if passenger rail is to survive.
Let me be clear here. People often get after me thinking that I have been bus nut all of my life, I must love mass transit which would include rail. I get annoyed at that and tell them that I love the buses themselves not the operators since the local transit operators are part of local govt. They tell us what time we should go and come back.
I drive my car to work. I'm not going to stand outside and wait for a bus and transfer several times, and have it take twice as long and that's when the weather is good. If my car breaks down, I'll call a cab.
Time to move this discussion.
Hi all;
The company BYD is located locally in Lancaster, Ca. Currently, they are in the
test and evaluation stage. I have even seen an articulated bus cruising the
streets.
Guess they have big plans. Within the last year they have expanded their
manufacturing facility and are hiring people like crazy.
Merle.
Quote from: ol713 on December 21, 2017, 04:20:45 PM
Hi all;
The company BYD is located locally in Lancaster, Ca. Currently, they are in the
test and evaluation stage. I have even seen an articulated bus cruising the
streets.
Guess they have big plans. Within the last year they have expanded their
manufacturing facility and are hiring people like crazy.
Merle.
Their website shows an artic. They quote it as being made for 60 people. BYD is headquartered in and has most of its manufacturing in China.
I could see in a few years having a "kit" where a Diesel engine/transmission would be swapped with an electric motor and battery. Think about it-how many times do you go more than 250 miles in a day of driving your bus? We could continue to have an on board generator to supplement the range on those days we needed to go further than 250 miles. I personally would go for an electric bus conversion. Good Luck, TomC
.....until you had to spend the big bucks for batteries. Where are you going to install all your conversion components since that Underfloor space is consumed with batteries. A used all electric shell most likely will need those batteries $$$$$$ before you move it off the lot.
That's true of the BYD-type buses which I assume use lead-acid batteries, but if you're talking about a long-distance highway bus (the bus equivalent of a Tesla truck) then you'd be talking about li-on battery packs which would be comparatively small in comparison - The amount of space dedicated to batteries in a Tesla truck isn't huge and a bus could handle that amount whilst still having a lot of baggage space left over.
But I completely agree that the cost of replacement batteries would scupper the whole concept, and there needs to be an order-of-magnitude change (and not just building a new Giga-factory) in either the technology or economics of batteries before this type of thing is going to become feasible for the common man.
Jeremy
PS - Interesting thing in the news yesterday saying that Apple has finally admitted that their software does deliberately slow down iPhones as they get older - of course everyone says it's a cynical ploy to get customers to get rid of their old phone and upgrade to the latest model, but apparently it's more to do with managing the gradual loss of performance of the batteries. So in the future perhaps the software in our cars and buses will deliberately slow them down for the same reason.
I can imagine the cost of replacement control modules or boards or motors will be unobtanium in short order after busses age and are retired by transportation companies. Also, I would think the battery concept is going to be used in inner city use before it hits intra city use. Inner city busses don't have baggage compartments.
I just hope those things will have enough power to make it up the hills in PA and other hilly areas. One of our plants which is built into a hill, so our maintenance dept. often gets around on those CUSHMAN vehicles. Back in the 80's and 90's, they bought some all electric versions. They were great for getting around on the floor but take one of these on a hill, that was one slow climb in contrast to the gasoline versions. Well those are long gone because of that and the charges that took longer and lasted much shorter.
I can picture this..."and here are me and grandpa in PA. We didn't plan to stop at this road side tavern but the bus couldn't make it up that hill so we were waiting for a mobile battery replacement truck since we couldn't flag down an amish buggy to pull us."
Certainly the "control boards" inside Tesla cars for example are the only clever thing about them - everything else (including the batteries and motors) is relatively low-tech and widely available stuff. But apparently the electronics in them is space-age stuff, and woe betide anyone who has to replace one of those units
But at the same time - longer term I'm not worried about that. 30 years ago fuel injection was space-age stuff too and yet now you can download open-source fuel injection software (Megasquirt etc), run it on cheap-to-buy generic hardware, and have a system with all the same sophisticated features (and more) that the big manufacturers have. The same thing will happen to electric vehicles systems very soon - indeed it's already happening and there's a huge number of DIY electric vehicle builders out there (just search on Youtube etc). I myself built a electric mountain bike earlier this year using off-the-shelf circuit boards for the li-on battery management
It's all gonna happen, no matter what the blinkered Luddites amongst us say
Jeremy
I tend to agree that these things will improve. But until they do, I remain a proud skeptic, curmudgeon, and crabby. :)
Quote from: Jeremy on December 22, 2017, 05:08:48 AM
Jeremy
PS - Interesting thing in the news yesterday saying that Apple has finally admitted that their software does deliberately slow down iPhones as they get older - of course everyone says it's a cynical ploy to get customers to get rid of their old phone and upgrade to the latest model, but apparently it's more to do with managing the gradual loss of performance of the batteries.
Except, new battery is $11.00 USD and a monkey can install one. Reduces Apple's argument to BS.
Yeah, easy to get it somewhere, EXCEPT DDEC computers and readers/ manipulaters. Well it doesn't really matter to me personally since I'm already ancient. Remember how lame battery drills were in the beginning. Norfolk Southern has a couple ll electric units they are experimenting with.Check out Altoona Works on Facebook. I remember the GE battery lawn tractors called Electrac. When the batteries went bad, they were permanent tly parked. No doubt all electric busses will be perfected, probably especially in high density/ pollution sensitive cities first. Already a big change in our town since they went 100% to natural gas busses about 10 years ago.
Quote from: TomC on December 21, 2017, 11:45:08 PMI could see in a few years having a "kit" where a Diesel engine/transmission would be swapped with an electric motor and battery. Think about it-how many times do you go more than 250 miles in a day of driving your bus? We could continue to have an on board generator to supplement the range on those days we needed to go further than 250 miles. I personally would go for an electric bus conversion. Good Luck, TomC
They quote a battery change (i.e cost of battery pack and labor alone) at $100,000. I'm thinking that diesel is going to be good as long as I am.
Long live mechanical Detroit Diesel two-strokes: they sound good, smell good, have no rust in the vicinity of the engine, have no computers, and no danger of lithium fires. :o
Hot Rod electric golf carts are doable. Back in 1965 Grandfather nearly got evicted from the trailer park because he hot rodded a golf cart up with some sort of high performance DC motor. An electric motor out of some surplus torpedo? Dunno that.
He had 30 some sort of high discharge rated Nickel Cadmium locomotive starting batteries. Small cells. Lots of them. For 3 minutes he had a hot rod golf cart. For 30 minutes the thing went quite well. Then hours recharging up. Long ago. Far away.
I take the bus to work every day. Today, the destination sign said it was an electric bus. I was quite interested to find out how quiet an electric bus is, but as soon as I got in the bus and walked to the back I realized it was just a regular diesel bus. The driver must have picked the wrong information for the destination sign.
Beware the unspoken...
Within a year, whole roof tops of batteries were being replaced in brand new hybrid buses.
Anything can appear to work, when unlimited tax dollars have been allocated.
The hidden maintenance costs changes all the evaluations on practicality and economics.
happy coaching!
buswarrior
New battery technology is truly amazing. That and rare earth magnet motors and SCR motor drives. But for most of us nothing is going to beat burning diesel. If I was twenty I might think different.
Whether you spend money on Diesel fuel, or eventually have to buy new batteries-energy to move the bus has to be bought.
Bingo!