I found this almost by accident. Looks a bit different but interesting anyway.
https://newatlas.com/gaffoglio-electric-bus/49432/
I can't help but wonder how much fossil fuel has to be burned to recharge the batteries??? Jack
I was reading and looking a pictures of the double decker bus that crashed into a building canopy in Ottawa last week. From the pictures it looks like the upper deck is only fiberglass offering little or no protection to passengers.The canopy it ran into doesn't look substantial enough to do the damage it did had there been a proper metal structure on the bus. The accompanying story talked about buses having to provide more safety for passengers and compared these buses (unfavorably) to school buses.
As well the Humbolt bus crash that killed a number of hockey players in Western Canada had the roof completely torn off in a collision with a loaded semi.
I think there are "a changes commin" in the commercial bus travel in the near future.
Very true.
But when you consider that some younger people think electricity just comes it of the wall and no thought beyond that, it's small wonder why the symbolism over substance mind set will make a fortune off of those young misguided people.
Electric vehicles will get better but we're not there yet folks.
MCI has their all electric J4500e ready to roll next year.
Shall be interesting how it works out for them.
All the more power to them with this electric J but how many will be repowered with diesel when they get enough headaches from stranded charter groups.
And from the title of this thread I thought we talking bus conversions, but no, it's another one about electric powered buses
I made the correction.
The old post war GMC bus design mimicked the war time tanks!
I think it is very ugly.
Jim
Driver to passengers."As we have traveled slightly over a hundred miles, we will be stopping to recharge our batteries. We will continue our next 100 mile leg in about 4 to 6 hours. Meanwhile we will be playing reruns of I Love Lucy." ::)
Once the warm fuzzy feeling fades reality sets in...
I don't see a suntan lotion dispenser for the driver, and all of the seats look awfully thin. How much battery power is used to run the A/C, and how cool is the driver going to be? ::)
"Sorry but we can't show I LOVE LUCY reruns since the DVD player will go dead after 3 minutes.
Hope you have unlimited data on your phones people because the WIFI is now down. We have a few decks of cards...".
Just in case y'all not kidding about electric, here is a single generic article offering some insight to the probable benefits of electric vehicles.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/constancedouris/2017/10/24/the-bottom-line-on-electric-cars-theyre-cheaper-to-own/
I've been following the evolution and ready to jump on when the right combination of electric and autonomous tech is offered at "value" pricing. Personally, just far too compelling not to seriously consider. When level four is proven and upgradable to five that'll be the tipping point.
For the doubting Thomas types, this article shows clearly the US is on board and moving quickly to adopt electric vehicles.
http://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/autonomous-vehicles-self-driving-vehicles-enacted-legislation.aspx
Considering that we can expect new cars today to have an extended lifespan of 20 years minimum, 25 years to antique status, and at least a 30 year useful life if maintained properly, gasoline and diesel vehicles are going to be with us for awhile yet. None of us who do not want to drive an electric car is likely to be forced into it.
Jim
Jim,
Exactly. Electric vehicles are at the beginning of the technology adoption curve with decades to before before passing the maturity phase. This thread is about electric but a jog OT is AI. Just stumbled upon the latest from Anthony Levandowski. Drove coast to coast no hands. https://pronto.ai/
Given his track record this is no joke - 5 grand and you can get AI into commercial trucks! Amazing!
Has anyone in the bus conversion community converted a diesel bus to electric? Its apparently being done in some circles: http://easpower.com/electric-trucks-and-buses/
Here's a video the company is the link above shared on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCCw6ZofT-c
It'll be awhile before the technology is mature, and the early adopters will be the ones to pay for the development curve. Smart money will leave it alone until it becomes more profitable to use it than not. That'll be awhile.
Jim
Well, $7,500 help ease getting on board early. Hope the credit gets renewed.
Electric vehicles have very different cost to maintain.
While I see lots of discussion about how bad fossil fuels are, I don't see much discussion about the total environmental cost of making the batteries and keeping them charged. What about the cost of dealing with the dead batteries?
I own a hybrid - the cost of replacing the battery is more than the gas saved - IF the battery lasts 100,000 miles AND gas is $4/ gallon. (from what I have been told by the service department, most do not last that long and avg fuel mileage drops significantly long before)
Another concern I have is the durability of the electronic controls - 20 years is a very long time for things that sensitive to corrosion.
The biggest problem will be getting a service department that can actually repair these new systems vs treating them as disposable.
I'm not opposed to the new technology, But I am opposed to misleading marketing and false promises.
I remember the hype of solar electricity in the 70's -vs- the reality.
Kyle,
I totally agree with you on the cost/investment.
Also what is the MACRO impact to the planet CO2 from the manufacture of a new car vs driving the same one for an average number of miles per year.
What is the impact of me driving my car for the next 10 years, vs manufacturing 3 new electric cars for me during that time? and how many batteries?
Nobody wants to discuss this.
I disagree with giving a $7500 credit to someone who is buying a $80-100K electric car. Does it really incentivize the average man to consider an electric car? Kind-of. There should be a cutoff amount where Uber Luxury doesn't qualify--$50K & over-- or it is gradually reduced.
The credit should be given after you can prove you are the original owner and have kept the car for 4 years---then see how committed you are to the environment!
Just my random engineer ramblings.
Steve
Still, your $7500 credit comes from tax payers pockets.😠
Yes-- I do disagree w/$7500--but if you are going to give it, make sure that it is to someone who is committed!
FYI - the credit applies to all electric only cars, cheap and expensive alike. The 2018 Smart Fortwo Electric Drive lists for $24,650. $17,000 after the credit. Seems pretty appealing to get one to jump now. https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/cheapest-electric-cars (https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/cheapest-electric-cars)
There is insufficient field data to establish the long term reliability, maintenance costs, durability, depreciation, etc. but there are fewer components to require maintenance. However, we all know little electronic boxes and parts have a way of costing way more than seems reasonable and know high tech products become obsolete quickly and depreciate quickly.
For the right profile, an electric is a no brainer today, for others, it may never make sense.
All new technology comes with bags of concerns, questions, naysayers, etc., just the nature of change. Will just have to live, watch, and adopt with the changes as they arrive.
The early adopter needs to be something of a gambler. There is no way of knowing the hidden and unforseen costs until afterwards, and in most high tech products these costs can be prohibitive initially, that is, had they been known in advance which they never are, or at least are never admitted.
Which is nothing new, bleeding edge technology has always had the tendency to cut you badly. This is no different. Much more prudent to wait until the field has stabilized, costs have come down, and a track record has been proven. That'll be awhile yet.
Jim
"This is no different. Much more prudent to wait until the field has stabilized, costs have come down, and a track record has been proven."
Each person assesses their personal conditions and situation then decides how to proceed that is in their best interest, there is no one size fits all answer. I can tell you from personal experience it was a no-brainer for commuters in Silicon Valley to lease a Nissan Leaf for a hundred bucks a month and shaving an hour off their commute by gaining access to the HOV lanes. If you are retired living in the country it would not be appealing at all.
Then you have to deal with these issues.
https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-clean-air-car-decals-20180917-story.html
Quote from: pabusnut on January 19, 2019, 09:06:27 AMKyle,
I totally agree with you on the cost/investment.
Me too.
Quote from: pabusnut on January 19, 2019, 09:06:27 AMAlso what is the MACRO impact to the planet CO2 from the manufacture of a new car vs driving the same one for an average number of miles per year.
What is the impact of me driving my car for the next 10 years, vs manufacturing 3 new electric cars for me during that time? and how many batteries?
Nobody wants to discuss this. ..
Steve
People don't want to discuss many realities. I drive an '03 Jetta TDI wagon (bought to replace an '02 TDI sedan bought new in '02 but was wrecked by a drunk running from the cops). I got a $30,000 credit on my VW. It's about to turn over 500,000 miles, and I've averaged close to 53 MPG overall (I kept receipts for every drop of fuel that went into the tank). Here's how I got my $30,000 "credit".
If I'd bought the same car with a gasoline engine, I'd have paid about $70,000 for fuel (based on the same offset for beating the EPA rating that I did on the diesel, plus a penalty for the extra cost of diesel after EPA imposed new requirements on diesel fuel). I actually paid $40,000 so far, don't forget I have receipts. About 350,000 miles, I figured that I saved enough to refund the cost of the vehicle in '02, about $20,000. Since then, I tell people that VW gave me a car for free. The extra $10,000 "Credit" I put in my pocket.
No batteries required, minimal electronics, very little maintenance - most of which I've done myself.
But it's a "bad car - dirty, petroleum-driven" -- when the environ-mentalist's get their power for free, and it's "clean" of course. I got a big old fat hairy redneck a$# that they can kiss. Or if they wake up and want to buy my car, they're welcome to it -- just make my widow a reasonable offer.
Not that I got any strong feelings about all this stupidity, of course. (And I haven't even got started on paying them $7500 of my money for their overgrown little golf cars.)
Bruce,
My '04 is a low mileage Jetta TDI--only 260K-- my diesel Jeep Liberty is practically new--97K !
As an engineer, I look at life cycle cost-- that includes the production cost of breakdowns. The Jetta has now been towed once for brakes(it was actually a vacuum line when daughter driving) and the Jeep once--rubber brake line going to wheel.
Now the tow truck driver who towed the Jeep last week tells me he has "towed" 14 Tesla's is the last 4 months!!--Yup--you guessed it--they ran out of battery!!! Apparently wealthy enough to buy a Tesla does not equal smart enough to drive it!!
Steve
Again, just imagine the problems with TESLA cars being applied to electric buses.
Many PO'd people stranded on their chartered trip along the interstate waiting for a diesel powered bus to come to finish the trip. Then you factor in the AC and heat which will drink up quite a bit of juice alone. Perhaps a small or even portable gasoline generator will give some peace of mind until they are sure that the thing can behave itself on long trips.
I have a friend who'd dad bought a TESLA S which is their nice bigger sedan.
The guy loves it but I wonder how it will hold up over time given the current design.
Fleets of long haul commercial buses could just do a battery swap and be on there way, similar to what Tesla has already shown: https://www.tesla.com/videos/battery-swap-event
I don't think that would be an option for a converted bus. If a converted bus went all electric, I do think a good diesel generator would be key. If the owner didn't care about moving too fast solar panels could provide the go juice. Here solar electric van project that is similar to what I envision a solar electric bus might be like: https://www.facebook.com/Routedelsol/
Naturally, there are many aspects of running electric buses in commercial operation. Nowadays, the USA continues to loose ground as the technology leader.
QuoteAs of 2017, 99% of electric buses have been deployed in China, with more than 385,000 buses on the road, which is 17% of China's total bus fleet.
Wikipedia statement is a bit eyeopening about the vast commercial deployment of ebuses.
!00% Internal Battery Electric Bus ...
Anybody here old enough to remember way way back over 50 years ago when Honda Presented the first for USA domestic use the Honda Automobile? I do. Worked at a very large Honda motorcycle dealership assembling motorcycles from big cardboard boxes on wood pallets. A fun easy job.
Then the first Honda Car arrived on the showroom floor. We employees all laughed. What a piece of junk. Horrible fit. Horrible finish. Nothing worked. Horrible driver. But ... that was then. Now Honda builds one of the best cars in the world. Yep. Give the electric bus some time. Bound to get better.
Just me.
I'm really glad to read these last two posts 'cos I've been rolling my eyes and biting my tongue at this thread for days, and it's nice to be able to give my facial muscles a rest.
The problem with the constant repetition of all these sage and wise back-to-first-principles arguments against the practicalities of electric vehicles (and renewable-power generation and all the rest) is that it ignores the fact that - like it or not - the rest of the world is zooming ahead with this stuff and those sage and wise people are getting left further and further behind.
Jeremy
That's fine for a change. When it is successful, we can copy them for a change. Save all that research money. Chinese have done it for years.
Bottom line here is that these things will improve but as these electric vehicles are now, they are not to the point of being as reliable, practical and cost effective yet.
Change just for the sake of it is stupid most especially if you just want to impress the rest of the world even though the rest of the world doesn't like us anyway.
The BOEING 787 is known to be a lemon because for whatever reason, they couldn't just use existing engines and electrical systems. No they just had use untested components just to say it was all new.
How did that work out?
The ground is littered with the sad remains of well over 98% of all things excitedly proclaimed to be NEW! and mostly taken up by the under 30 crowd, much to their later dismay. And that's fine, that's progress. It's the way things get better because that remaining less than 2% often is really quite good.
Where does any specific item fall? Usually you can't tell, and the only real way to find out is to either climb aboard or wait and see. After a few years of climbing aboard most people stop doing that, and this is the reason why the older folks are mostly in the "wait and see" crowd. Simple human nature at work. So there's no reason to decry the reluctance of the old timers because they aren't eager to jump in, after all, they've done their time. They can all give examples of when they excitedly adopted the certain new thing that then proceeded to flop, and even tell you about the ones that got away. The odds just don't favor making any more investment in it when it's much more important to secure your last years when there is going to be nobody around to look after you.
Jim
The things we've seen...45 rpm records>audio tapes>cassette tapes>CD's>mp3's>Ipods> the cloud...
VHS tapes>dvd's>streaming video....
That's why we don't get real exicited about all electric vehicles or buses. Eventually, it may happen but after I'm pushing up daisys or dandelions.
It's not like electric buses are new and...oh wait. Those are the ones that completely depend on overhead wires and won't work anywhere else.
Quote from: CrabbyMilton on January 23, 2019, 09:51:17 AM
It's not like electric buses are new and...oh wait. Those are the ones that completely depend on overhead wires and won't work anywhere else.
I don't think that's true anymore. Nashville is one place that I've seen electric buses operating without overhead lines. They have quick charge stations where they can top off in 10 minutes, which can easily be built into the route. I'm sure these are in use elsewhere.
Like it or not, electric buses are going to become more and more common.
I think it's important to remember that some of the most successful early automobiles were fully electric. The only thing that kept them from continuing was the limitation in battery technology. Had better batteries existed, it's anyone's guess which direction the auto industry would have taken back then.
One last reference - electric is not only here but totally pervasive in some areas of the world, not the USA of course. From the Wall Street Journal. If you doubt the validity of the source or don't read the article, there is no hope.
QuoteA national project to replace millions of gasoline-fueled taxis, buses and trucks with new electric models is boosting China's ambitions to lead the global shift to battery-powered transportation.
QuoteIn China's southern tech hub of Shenzhen, for example, all buses and taxis will be electric by the end of this year, with generous subsidies helping drive the switch.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-has-early-lead-on-electric-commercial-vehicles-1543755601 (https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-has-early-lead-on-electric-commercial-vehicles-1543755601)
As I've said, this technology with improve.
However, I don't want pattern anything after China.
We can do it better they just copy us.
This topic is really a tentacle of the massive octopus China has become in dominating technology development and deployment. This article alone demonstrates the massive investment the government is committing to converting to electric transportation. At least there was support for the govt credit for purchase of electric vehicles here but that seems to be loosing support, so sad.
Look at the deployment of high speed rails in China, another tentacle of the beast. It makes look Japan look antiquated much less the totally stupid bullet train to nowhere in the California desert.
Look at the massive battle taking place in 5G dominance. Huawei is yet another tentacle for pushing the leading edge of the next generation of wireless communication.
The USA hasn't lost the war yet but plenty bruised up in many battles. We had all better wake up soon or we're toast.
The fact that the govt. has to pay people to want to buy them sort of shows that few want them.
Let the market decide such things.
I still wonder how the J4500e will sell. If it goes well, it's just matter of time before I'll get to ride on one on a charter trip. If not so be it.
Govt subsidies are actually paid for with tax payer money.
The free market isn't perfect, but history shows it is way more efficient than anything controlled by the govt.
If most vehicles go electric, where is the electricity going to come from?
Coal & fossil fuel? too dirty.
Nuclear? the power is temporary, but the waste is forever.
Hydroelectric? may kill something that we haven't even discovered yet.
Solar? not much good at night or cloudy/ rainy days.
Wind? Noise & detrimental to birds.
Geothermal? Requires so much water & possible release of greenhouse gases.
Still no free lunch!
Regardless of where or what fuel they get the electric from, it seems to me that having a centralized plant making the electric is more a more efficient use of the fuel than having millions of individual power plants running down the road. There are lots of new technologies coming online and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes on line in the coming years.
I'm as much a capitalist free-marketeer as anyone (and have had the business career to prove it) but the problem is that it's not appropriate to leave technological development entirely to the fate of short-term profit seeking. Would anyone seriously have advocated leaving the development of the nuclear power industry to short-term profit seekers for example?
Governments need to show LEADERSHIP in the strategic adoption of new technologies and not merely follow behind what the current market (which knows no better) says it wants. But there are far too many old reactionaries (many of them driving 60-year-old buses) who seem to think that any policy which strategically supports the development of a particular technology is somehow tantamount to Communist ideology.
Yes tax-payer money will be spent, and yes much of it will be wasted. And yes some of these developments will turn out to be dead-ends and in 20 years we will all look back and think that we were idiots to go that route. But it's STILL right to take these gambles because some of them WILL come off and end-up giving almost unmeasureable benefits to the countries that took the risks. All power to the Chinese for having the balls to take their electric vehicle gamble, and all power to them if it comes off
Finally, imagine if, after 20 years and trillions of Yen spent, the Chinese Government's support for electric vehicle development turns-out to have been a colossal cock-up and dead-end:- What would the outcome of that actually be? That the Chinese Government had injected trillions of Yen into it's economy and provided high-tech employment for thousands of tax-paying companies and well-paid jobs of tens of thousands of tax-paying workers? And no-doubt have created technological spin-offs in dozens of other areas? And all that would somehow have been bad for China?
Jeremy
Gee, Jeremy
That sounds an awful lot like what the US government did in the guise of "defence" and "space" spending since before any of us was born?
The appearance of these matters is different, depending whether you are inside or outside the influence?
Will the future think fondly of us or condemn us?
Anyone planted a figurative olive tree recently?
Happy coaching!
Buswarrior
Personally I think the government should be spending some of that money on ME! After all, I created the first practical high volume, high speed metal deposition 3D printer, you would think they would be knocking on my door. But that's not the way the world works and you won't see it in Best Buy anytime soon. Sorry about that.
Jim
I think the problem is not with the bus, technically it's already good.
The problem is with the use and infrastructure.
For a city transit operation it is rather easy to assign the bus journey according to battery pack capacity (80 kW - 480 kW), altough you to need upgrade the bus depot in order to have enough electric capacity to charge all the bus at night (when the're not running).
Now, what about all the RV parks having to upgrade every lots in order for RV vehicle to charge... how many will have the cash for this massive upgrade ? Remember that with an electric RV, you will not be able to go boondocking, unless you wait long enough to replenish the most likely 400+ kW battery pack... Will you burn diesel in a generator in order to charge the battery pack ?
Electric vehicle is good for city use or regualr intercity usage.
Remember that i work for a city transit agency and we just bought 1200 hybrid buses ( to be delivered between 2019-2023). Since we keep our buses for 16 years...we'll be buying diesel fuel for the next 20 years !!!
As for the chinese buses...just look at Albuquerque city web site.