Do any Electric buses run on hilly routes?

[Bletchleyite]

How does that work? Leasing relies on residual value* at the end of the lease to make it work. Old tyres and batteries will have limited residual value so the leasing costs will be very high.

* The value of the leased item at the end of the lease. The selling of leased items at the end of their lease is an important part of leasing profitability.

The same reason business likes to lease property - not because it's cheaper (it's not), but because they pay a fixed sum per month for the service of having serviceable batteries/tyres on the vehicle all the time. It's more de-risking than cost reduction.

 

[Ken H]

The same reason business likes to lease property - not because it's cheaper (it's not), but because they pay a fixed sum per month for the service of having serviceable batteries/tyres on the vehicle all the time. It's more de-risking than cost reduction.

and it keeps borrowing off balance sheet.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Glad that you referred to them as "luxuries" in quotes. They are essentials. You won't attract anyone out of their car without them, as a damp bus with steamed up windows simply doesn't compare to your air-conditioned car in any way.

To be fair you could equip a bus with Lazy-boy armchairs, a complimentary hot tub, and scantily-clad flunkies feeding the passengers peeled grapes... and you still wouldn't tempt people out of their BMW X5s!

 

[Mikey C]

Your typical articulated electric bus, including power for air conditioning, can do about 200 km so it is highly doubtful that it wouldn't be able to cover a single route in one direction no matter how hilly. The debate is whether you can run a bus all day without charging which seems to be important in the cost conscious British situation. In other countries where charging at the end of the route is normal you don't expect a bus to be able to go all day without charging. That way they can run buses at higher speeds out of town and allow for "luxuries" such as double glazing and air conditioning.

Once nearly every bus in London is electric, then maybe some strategically placed chargers will be installed in bus stations and other major places where buses wait at the end of routes

 

[Busaholic]

Once nearly every bus in London is electric, then maybe some strategically placed chargers will be installed in bus stations and other major places where buses wait at the end of routes

It already happened, on route 69 between Canning Town Bus Station and Walthamstow Central Bus Station, with overhead chargers at both locations. It was announced with great fanfare in the summer of 2014, with four suitably adapted hybrid buses slated for the route, but when it was eventually introduced in autumn 2015 only three daily return journeys were provided by one bus on a supplementary schedule, and even the operator was different from the one which provided the main service! It was quietly dropped by TfL after a few months. I don't have the reasons why in my head any more, but could probably find out should interest be expressed.

 

[700007]

Route 214 is quite hilly in London, and uses the Enviro 200 BYD buses which cope quite well as I understand it. Much better than the Darts and classic diesel Enviro 200s that predate it.

69 has gone fully electric over the weekend as it started a new contract with Go Ahead (previously Tower Transit), with the three hybrid buses gone and the charging infrastructure at Walthamstow bus station inactive. The buses themselves only charge at Go-Ahead's new Silvertown Henley Road depot when not in passenger service. The buses are owned by TfL and will apparently reappear at another company shortly.

 

[Welshman]

To be fair you could equip a bus with Lazy-boy armchairs, a complimentary hot tub, and scantily-clad flunkies feeding the passengers peeled grapes... and you still wouldn't tempt people out of their BMW X5s!

Ooo, I don't know!
I've always been fond of grapes.

 

[TRAX]

To be fair you could equip a bus with Lazy-boy armchairs, a complimentary hot tub, and scantily-clad flunkies feeding the passengers peeled grapes... and you still wouldn't tempt people out of their BMW X5s!

Which is logical because what usually keeps drivers in their cars isn’t amenities but personal space (which I understand).

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

To be fair you could equip a bus with Lazy-boy armchairs, a complimentary hot tub, and scantily-clad flunkies feeding the passengers peeled grapes... and you still wouldn't tempt people out of their BMW X5s!

Absolutely true.

Also, and I appreciate it's @Bletchleyite's opinion but passengers don't view air conditioning and double glazing as essentials. Not compared to many other aspects although what that has to do with whether electric buses can manage on hills escapes me.

Certainly, the move to electric vehicles has a multitude of benefits in terms of localised emissions but with the move to greener power generation, the old adage of simply moving pollution from city streets (diesel vehicles) to power station stacks (emissions from coal/gas fuelled power stations) is no longer valid to the same extent. Dare I say it but the issue of engine vibration (most noticeably bad in stuff like e200s and Streetlites) will be removed and improve the travelling experience. The issue is, as always, in terms of battery life and range but those are clearly improving and hills should not be a major issue.

To my mind, the argument has to be in supporting the bus industry to become zero-emission in our major towns and cities as a pre-cursor to limiting private car usage on clean air grounds. That said, the Bath CAZ will penalise the bus operator for using a 63 plate e200 (euro V) but not for average joe driving into town in their 1994 diesel Volvo estate!

 

[Planesandtrain]

Route 484 (Lewisham to Camberwell) now uses Electric BYD E200's, haven't tried them yet so will be interesting to see how they perform up the hills.

More impressively Stagecoach South regularly use the glide park & ride BYD E200's on the 715 from Guildford to Kingston in order to comply with the new ULEZ regulations.

 

[najaB]

Not in the UK, I know, but the Barbados Transport Board has recently taken on 30 BYD K9s* and are using them on routes throughout the island. Some of the routes are reasonably hilly - e.g. the Bathsheba to Bridgetown route involves a steady climb of 350m over 4km.

*Edit: Actually, they might be K7s.