MCI all electric commuter

[lvmci]

MCI NEW FLYER all electric commuter bus.172 mile range, maybe not good for LA. I think this means a lot of As thru Js will come up for sale, lvmci...

[CrabbyMilton]

I certainly hope these work well for MCI and their long time customers. I'm very skeptical but will see how things go. They may prove well for short haul within a region or transit buses. But longer charter trips? Not sure yet but time will tell.

[luvrbus]

That's not MCI 1st go at it Tulsa County had a D electric based bus for years and sold it off last year at auction,they never could keep it on the road

[CrabbyMilton]

I thought that was a hybrid. Regardless, we can cheer them on with a few grains of salt.

[luvrbus]

I thought that was a hybrid. Regardless, we can cheer them on with a few grains of salt.

I am going to hang with my ISX 15 Cummins I can do a starter and 2 batteries 

[lvmci]

MCI in Los Alimitos, CA had a couple of LA County's local CNG buses, they emitted very low pollution levels, in their shop when I was there,  from their commuter lines, lvmci...(compressed natural gas)

[chessie4905]

Our local bus company has been using cng ones for about 20 years now. I believe they took advantage of some kind of federal incentives to switch over.

[luvrbus]

Our local bus company has been using cng ones for about 20 years now. I believe they took advantage of some kind of federal incentives to switch over.

The City of El Paso had 150 CNG Detroit Series 50. Detroit paid the City to replace the series 50 with the Cummins CNG engines.Cummins is the only manufacture left for CNG engines in buses both Detroit and John Deere tossed in the towel 

[buswarrior]

Cummins has been in the CNG game from the beginning. It is no small bit of engineering required to get the engines to get both good fuel economy, and not eat valves.

Cummins had their race people from the marine engine side working on them, back in the 90's. Old hot road challenge, lean burn eating valves.

It was amazing to see the tops of the pistons after a valve snapped off... absolute destruction!

But those problems were worked out, with evolving fuel control improvements.

Cummins/Westport are the names you'll see together.

The others thought they would dabble...

Happy coaching!
Buswarrior

[freds]

Are the CNG buses only CNG or can you run them on Diesel in a pinch?

[luvrbus]

Are the CNG buses only CNG or can you run them on Diesel in a pinch?

No diesel CNG only ,there are a couple of 60 series Detroit around here that use CNG they sure sound funny running

[buswarrior]

Are the CNG buses only CNG or can you run them on Diesel in a pinch?

Spark ignition engine, just like gasoline.

Happy coaching!
Buswarrior

[windtrader]

http://sacramentort.weebly.com/rolling-stock-buses.html

2801-2891 Orion VII NG

Kind of interesting to see the history as well as the current fleet of CNG buses, looks like 90 running in Sacramento

[Iceni John]

After the fiasco of BYD's under-performing electric buses and their all-too-cozy relationship with the State of California, I remain to be convinced about the usefulness of current battery buses.   Note I said battery buses  -  I recently noticed a new OCTA bus that instead of saying CNG on the back like all of them now it said CH2 (and it was silent).   Not knowing what that was, I looked it up  -  it's a hydrogen fuel cell bus, and OCTA has ten of them.   I expect their range will be better than a battery bus, but the big question mark to me is how their hydrogen is made.   Hydrogen isn't a fuel per se, more an energy storage medium like a battery, and because hydrogen itself does not naturally occur on this planet, how much energy and pollution does it take to make it, and from what non-renewable hydrocarbon source?   Yes, I know that theoretically one could split water by using PV-generated electricity, but I somehow doubt that's how those buses' hydrogen is made.   Ballard has been making fuel cell buses for a while now, so the technology is approaching being mature  -  maybe it's a more practical alternative to battery buses, at least for now?

Here's OCTA's blurb about those new buses:  https://www.octa.net/Bus/Hydrogen-Fuel-Cell-Electric-Bus/Overview/

John

[luvrbus]

CNG has been popular in Utah and Nev since the 80's most stations in Utah have pumps for CNG.lot of UPS highway trucks are CNG power.I saw some Waste Mangement trash trucks with CH2 they are quite