VioletEclipse
Member
As other posters have mentioned, the total cost of ownership of electric buses is already on par or lower than diesel buses. The problem is the upfront capital costs which are prohibitive. To put it in context, 1000kWh of battery storage is around £1000. Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates that if battery costs will continue to fall at their current rate then battery electric buses (BEBs) will reach upfront cost parity with diesel buses between 2025-30 (I've attached a couple of reports on electric buses to this post). By this point there will be no valid business reason to buy anything other than a BEB.
Further up the thread someone mentioned double deckers and right hand drive being obstacles. Stagecoach in Manchester has just placed an order for 56 double deck BEBs from ADL/BYD:
https://www.thebusinessdesk.com/northwest/news/2027427-manchester-get-new-56m-fleet-electric-buses
However there are some practical issues with BEBs that need to be overcome:
1. Range. The largest (real life range available is currently about 250-300km) but this is contingent on many factors (hills, weather, ambient temperature etc). In order to have enough batteries to cover this range, passenger capacity is reduced.
2. Productivity (often as a result of range, or of overstated performance), in Moscow the BEBs there have around 80% availability, meaning you need to order 20% more buses to operate the same service, thus nullifying the savings made from e.g. energy efficiency.
In order to overcome this there are two technical solutions that are gaining traction (pun intended) in Europe and America.
1. Opportunity charging - The BEB is equipped with smaller capacity (crucially lighter) batteries - usually for 100km range - and there are flash chargers installed at the termini, allowing 10-15min rapid recharges. There is a fleet operating around Schippol in Amsterdam that covers 500km per day on this basis. However, the charging equipment is expensive, about £500k, and new power supplies are needed to provide the 400kW (ABBs TOSA is one example of this). Experience from operation in Cologne has shown that during the peak hours 75% of buses were delayed on arrival at the termini and were unable to charge. The only way to allow charging then was to draft in diesel buses.
Here's a couple of good videos demonstrating opportunity charging:
2. BEB Trolleybuses. It may sound odd, but there is genuine movement towards this option. The bus companies call this 'In Motion Charging' (IMC), or dynamic charging. Basically the trolleybus is fitted with a battery that can cover about 40km which is continuously charged while the bus is 'in motion'. The trolleybus catenery is discontinuous, it only needs to cover 50% of the route, and thus can be erected where it is cheapest and easiest to do so. Hills, and outer suburbs are preferred because this is where there are the longest, most energy intensive sections of route. Prague has recently installed 1km of trolleybus overhead for route 58 and more is planned. Berlin and Stockholm are seriously considering installing significant amounts of trolley overhead in order to facilitate this system. It is unlikely that this version of charging will be embraced in Britain, in my view anyway.
Here are a couple of videos demonstrating IMC trolleybuses
3. Electricity requirements. According to Kiepe, overnight depot charging has the greatest draw on the grid followed by flash charging and IMC last.
I've attached some information to this post, if anyone is interested. In reference to Lothian buses, if the Low Emission Zone goes ahead then their fleet will need to be 100% Euro VI by 2023. That means a lot of buses will need replaced or retrofitted and the Euro VI retrofit increases operating costs significantly (c£200k higher fuel costs over lifetime). It would make sense, in my view, for the Scottish government to pay for the installation of opportunity charging equipment (they'll give you an interest free loan to buy a plug in car) and loan bus companies the capital to go straight to electric, bypassing Euro VI. And as an aside, Euro VI doesn't necessarily reduce emissions.
So in answer to the question, how long will it take for lothian to go fully electric? I guess by 2025 diesel buses will be the minority and the manufacturers will probably have stopped making them, or they'll be the minority of orders.
Great videos, shows that it's no doubt possible, and it's a lot more efficient than Euro 6 in every way except the initial purchase cost. I agree that diesel will be the minority by 2025, manufacturers would realise the benefit of making buses 100% electric (or another alternative fuel).
This is an excellent point, and perhaps one of the reasons that SOLARIS are so well placed in the electric bus market - their experience designing trolleybuses and trams?
Another point is the type and chemistry of batteries available. The big car makers are piling money into R&D of solid state batteries. If this proves fruitful then batteries will be smaller and lighter for the same energy storage making bus design simpler.
Lothian and First Glasgow have both said (albeit off the record) that the purchase costs are too high relative to a diesel bus.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opini...er-buses-say-about-public-transport-1-4830591
The Bloomberg report I linked earlier makes the same point - that at the moment many BEBs are purchased with grants, which is not sustainable. Likewise, it says that credit financing of BEBs is considered as risky (the battery life is currently esitmated at 8 years compared to the 12 year life of a diesel bus) as residual value is unkown.
Hence why the large battery bus with overnight charging isn't currently the most popular option. According to the Transport and environment report i linked above, 60% of BEB orders were for vehicles with pantographs to enable opportunity charging. Also, as of summer 2018, it estimates there are 1600 BEBs on order for delivery in 2019... These two graphs are interesting:
View attachment 56573 View attachment 56574
Car batteries are getting a lot more funding and research, it is true, but funding for BEBs is there, even if it's not everywhere.
Also hopefully purchase costs will drop significantly within the next decade, and I thing they will, so Government funding won't be necessary, and when that happens then I think BEBs will be a lot more popular.
Trolleybuses would have been great had they left up the tram wires from the 60s, but hey ho, they didn't so maybe not in Edinburgh, while (as mentioned) many other cities do have the infrastructure and there it would make sense.
I apologise for saying that, it was me trying to skim read and reply on my phone, and I completely misread and it wasn't kind to say it anyway. sorry.I am aware that purchasing electric buses isn't completely cost free and efficient, but nothing is!
One little correction in that Stagecoach are getting 105 electric vehicles spending £56m. Of course, there will be some infrastructure costs in that (?) but does emphasise the increased capital costs of such vehicles.
Not sure if the infrastructure costs are included in the price or not, but that aside it's a really good step forward by Stagecoach, good on them!