How quickly can Lothian go 100% Electric?

[VioletEclipse]

Many cities (especially in China) are well on the way to having a 100% electric bus fleet, ordering hundreds at a time. Back home in Edinburgh we're a bit behind, over a year ago Lothian had none, now we have 6 pure electric buses (2 of which are broken down). I understand that Wrightbus and ADL aren't exactly 100% electric either, but how quickly could Lothian become completely electric, and what would it take for it to happen (apart from vast amounts of money)?

 

[Bald Rick]

Many cities (especially in China) are well on the way to having a 100% electric bus fleet, ordering hundreds at a time. Back home in Edinburgh we're a bit behind, over a year ago Lothian had none, now we have 6 pure electric buses (2 of which are broken down). I understand that Wrightbus and ADL aren't exactly 100% electric either, but how quickly could Lothian become completely electric, and what would it take for it to happen (apart from vast amounts of money)?

Surely the answer is cash. How else could it be solved? Asking Santa for some electric buses for Christmas?

 

[VioletEclipse]

Surely the answer is cash. How else could it be solved? Asking Santa for some electric buses for Christmas?

lol, the thing is, IMO, that despite electric buses being more expensive to purchase in the first place (and charging points etc), they are cheaper to run once you have them (fuel costs and so on) so in the long run it's more economical. Knowing Lothian they will continue buying mainly diesel until electric buses 1: Are less expensive, 2: Have a longer range, and 3: Are available in large batches from ADL or Wright.

 

[overthewater]

Bring back tollybuses...

 

[Bald Rick]

Bring back tollybuses...

I suspect that trolley buses will be consigned to museums within 20 years.

 

[VioletEclipse]

I suspect that trolley buses will be consigned to museums within 20 years.

true.

 

[NotATrainspott]

One factor here is the Galapagos syndrome with British-style RHD buses. As far as I can tell most battery bus development is in bus types which aren't as common in the UK. Sure, the underlying power electronics can be shifted about and put into a RHD shell but it's non-trivial to get the ball rolling. Bus operators just testing the waters will want only a few buses each, but a bus manufacturer will want a proper production run before they build anything reflective of the mass-produced future. In LHD Europe the sum of all bus company demand for experimental electric vehicles is probably enough for one or two proper mass-produced lines, which then gives you enough economies of scale to see the real price. In RHD-land the number of electric buses currently being demanded by bus companies is so small that you won't get much more than a small run of semi-custom vehicles. Meanwhile, importing models from abroad is non-trivial because of different regulations, practices, the LHD/RHD split and the difficulty of looking after a small fleet of non-standard vehicles.

Hong Kong will probably be the first British-style RHD territory to go fully electric but that might be through adopting mainland Chinese designs and practices. I think the best driver for electrification in the UK would have to be government action. If UK suppliers knew that there could be zero diesel bus sales from 202X onwards they'd get moving.

 

[VioletEclipse]

One factor here is the Galapagos syndrome with British-style RHD buses. As far as I can tell most battery bus development is in bus types which aren't as common in the UK. Sure, the underlying power electronics can be shifted about and put into a RHD shell but it's non-trivial to get the ball rolling. Bus operators just testing the waters will want only a few buses each, but a bus manufacturer will want a proper production run before they build anything reflective of the mass-produced future. In LHD Europe the sum of all bus company demand for experimental electric vehicles is probably enough for one or two proper mass-produced lines, which then gives you enough economies of scale to see the real price. In RHD-land the number of electric buses currently being demanded by bus companies is so small that you won't get much more than a small run of semi-custom vehicles. Meanwhile, importing models from abroad is non-trivial because of different regulations, practices, the LHD/RHD split and the difficulty of looking after a small fleet of non-standard vehicles.

Hong Kong will probably be the first British-style RHD territory to go fully electric but that might be through adopting mainland Chinese designs and practices. I think the best driver for electrification in the UK would have to be government action. If UK suppliers knew that there could be zero diesel bus sales from 202X onwards they'd get moving.

Thanks, interesting to read I agree, if the government banned all diesel bus sales after 2023 then the likes of ADL and Wright would be quicker to change, while the LHD/RHD issue is a problem, plenty of RHD electric buses have been made already, so it's definitely possible.

Another thing with electric buses is that (just like electric cars and vans!) while the purchase cost is higher than with petrol or diesel, the running cost of an electric vehicle is SO much cheaper, the costs of fuel and maintenance are about half that of maintaining a fleet of almost 1000 diesel (with some hybrids) buses, which is what Lothian has. Cost aside, if the environment is even to have a chance to recover then continuing to produce fossil fuelled vehicles of any kind is simply NOT an option after 2023 (2023 being the closest realistic date for 100% renewable energy fuelled vehicle sales). That's my view on it at least, feel free to disagree.

 

[Driver362]

How much do you think it would cost to 're charge that lot ? Electricity is not free !

 

[NotATrainspott]

How much do you think it would cost to 're charge that lot ? Electricity is not free !

Electricity is always cheaper than fuel. If it weren't, then you'd just buy fuel and a generator and burn it at the depot to charge the buses.

Depending on the technologies they go with they might end up being able to do minor grid balancing work with the fleet as an additional revenue source. So long as the buses will have enough charge to do their timetabled duties, Lothian can then start charging them up when electricity is cheap and discharging them back into the grid when the spot price rises too high. There's quite a bit of money to be made selling not an incredibly large amount of electricity so long as you're able to respond to market demands within sub-second times. This is what the Hornsdale Power Reserve - with the Tesla batteries - is there to do. It can't compete with a coal or gas power plant for power over time but it can respond while they're still spooling up. Batteries can respond essentially instantaneously - faster even than hydroelectric power - so they have a massive ability to smooth out fluctuations in the electricity markets.

 

[158756]

How much do you think it would cost to 're charge that lot ? Electricity is not free !

Certainly less than buying diesel for them. The costly bits are the buses themselves and the infrastructure to charge them. Upfront costs shouldn't be a problem for large companies as much as for private car owners, but a bus needs to be able to run all day, and making depots capable of charging the whole fleet won't come cheap.

 

[AJW12]

I do agree with the above comment about electric buses ending up in a museum before long.

The problem with electric buses at the moment is that they're far, far too expensive which is why they'll never fully take off. The reason they're expensive is because the technology is still (in real terms) very very new. If (I'm not saying this will happen) electric buses started showing up more and more, electric charging depots became more common, bus manufacturers' % of electric buses making their orders increased, they'd become common on the market; second hand electric vehicles would have a decent value, and that's when they start becoming cheaper. Like any product in a market, it takes time before things become cheaper to the mass market (e.g. cars in developing countries still cost a fortune, if you hold off buying the new iPhone until 6 months after, you find a better deal).

However, in turn, the reason that electric buses are so new is the fact that they're actually underdeveloped. The majority of electric vehicles are smaller single deck vehicles which have small batteries so need charging during the day. York's Versas are smaller than the B7RLEs they replace, leading to horrid overcrowding at peak; Lothian's StreetAirs are being kept in more often than being sent out because of their tiny capacity. You could even argue the BYDs in London on the 507/521 are a bad idea; London above anywhere else in the UK needs a big change in its attitude to air quality, but their single deck capacity means to carry the passengers, they're stuffing 20-24 buses per hour over the already crammed London Bridge; deckers could mean you take the same number of people in 10-12bph. The few double decks around have the same issue; in York for example they might be alright for the Sightseeing tour, but most places, buses do a day of 6/7am-8/9pm (or earlier/later). If you're an organisation like Lothian, having a 100% electric fleet means you'd need far more vehicles than they have now, for the same service. Your cost spirals even higher.

The cost of these massive projects just isn't worth it. Somewhere like Harrogate isn't a terrible project (it has the advantage of being small with a central bus station, so the overhead charging system can be effective, which doesn't work for other cities). However if you think about the cost of electric vehicles, and the infrastructure - add it all together - the spend is huge. It might make Harrogate a low emission bus town, but down the road in York they're still using knackered old B7L/B7TLs belching out crappy fumes in the city. I'd be prepared to bet that the money spent on this project compared to green diesel vehicles would cover the cost of replacing those in York.

At the moment, I don't think there is, or should be, a future for electric buses. When local services are being slashed and the service in some areas is getting worse; I don't think that these expensive projects which are for external show are worth their cost.

 

[VioletEclipse]

I do agree that it is more expensive and impractical to have a fully electric fleet, and if diesel was even vaguely sustainable then electric buses would not make much sense, but unless we find a renewable and non polluting fuel that is more efficient then it has to be done for the environment, there isn't really a choice. When Lothian do sell old Electric buses then that's a lot of well maintained second hand ones out there for smaller companies to buy.

Lothian would save a LOT of money in the long run, even if they don't at first, also we can't go on forever extracting oils to power the world's vehicles, it will run out.

Lothian are still buying mostly diesel, but at some point that's got to change (I'm sure it will) within a decade or so, although it will certainly be expensive.

 

[NotATrainspott]

For interest, look at the spec sheet for a Proterra bus:

https://www.proterra.com/products/40-foot-catalyst/

The E2 series can have up to 390 miles of operating range using a 660kWh battery that can fully recharge at the depot in less than 4.5 hours. That means the technology is already there. And, they show that the increased purchase price of their buses ($700k) is quickly paid back by fuel and maintenance savings.

My earlier point about the Galapagos syndrome is that it's not possible for any British operator to buy a Proterra bus off-the-shelf. Sure, if Wrightbus or whoever made a deal (like Alexander Dennis has with the Chinese BYD) with Proterra for their electrical know-how they would be able to but there's a significant barrier to entry for any electric bus design. Proterra has had a lot of success with transit operators of all sizes, since it's easy for them to take on a demonstrator or get financing (since the buses can trivially be cascaded to other regions if, for whatever reason, they don't work well in their original deployment).

Double-deckers are a largely British thing, and the fact they are largely RHD means there's also that large barrier to entry for them to start being used elsewhere. A British operator won't ever have trouble financing a fleet of double deckers because anyone in the UK or Ireland can make use of them if they can't. If a continental operator wanted to finance them, they'd have to pay more upfront since they're not off-the-shelf and then there's a greater risk that no other operator will take them on. Therefore, the specific development required for electric double-deckers has to be funded by the UK-style market alone.

 

[VioletEclipse]

For interest, look at the spec sheet for a Proterra bus:

https://www.proterra.com/products/40-foot-catalyst/

Thanks, just shows the technology that's already there in simple figures! The Proterra always reminds me of the VanHool A320, which is also LHD only, as for Britain being one of the few RHD countries in the world we have more of a problem, but if ADL, Wright, and Optare participate (which they are starting to do) then we can have a range of electric deckers and catch up with the LHD world, as for single deckers I would love it if MB offered their Electric Citaro (coming next year) in RHD and sold it in the UK, although they would have to be brave to do it I think some operators would buy them, but I might be being biased as I am a fan of the Citaro

 

[Cesarcollie]

Euro VI diesel is incredibly clean. And don't forget that if a typical large city operation was converted to electric, most households would have no power for the night!! The infrastructure and capability simply isn't there yet. Unfortunately diesel has got a bad name - but modern diesels don't deserve it - especially when you remember that unless generated by water, wind or the sun, electricity has its own issues!! They're just more out of sight, out of mind......

 

[VioletEclipse]

Euro VI diesel is incredibly clean. And don't forget that if a typical large city operation was converted to electric, most households would have no power for the night!! The infrastructure and capability simply isn't there yet. Unfortunately diesel has got a bad name - but modern diesels don't deserve it - especially when you remember that unless generated by water, wind or the sun, electricity has its own issues!! They're just more out of sight, out of mind......

As much as I agree, I am completely aware that electricity isn't flawless but Scotland has about 70% renewable electricity and is on the way to 100%, while diesel, even Euro 6, may be clean as anything but it still emits fumes that affect people's health and the environment, while the production of diesel is anything but harmless, and isn't renewable. Still, I do much prefer Euro 6 than older and dirtier engines, take Lothian's B7TLs and B9TLs for example, they stink of diesel when you're next to them, and are so much louder than the B5TLs.

 

[ericlesley]

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.

 

[ericlesley]

Euro VI diesel is incredibly clean. And don't forget that if a typical large city operation was converted to electric, most households would have no power for the night!! The infrastructure and capability simply isn't there yet. Unfortunately diesel has got a bad name - but modern diesels don't deserve it - especially when you remember that unless generated by water, wind or the sun, electricity has its own issues!! They're just more out of sight, out of mind......

Unfortunately the evidence is that Euro VI does not necessarily reduce emissions at all. The crucial variable is engine operating temperature which needs to be high. This is achievable with extended high speed running on motorways and the like but real world operations have found it difficult to maintain engine temperature (stop start nature of urban routes).

See attached paper, for one example of the data.

I should also add that even if electricity is generated in fossil fuel power stations it is still more efficient that burning fuel in an internal combustion engine. Not least because of economies of scale. And whilst you can level that complaint against electric vehicles it is only really applicable to CO2. The really dangerous emissions, and those which are causing serious health problems (c40k deaths a year) are NOx and PM2.5/PM10. The bulk of which are emitted by the diesel engines of buses in cities. As an example, buses account for over half of transport related NOx in the London Road Air Quality Management Area in Edinburgh.

 

[Man of Kent]

Unfortunately the evidence is that Euro VI does not necessarily reduce emissions at all. The crucial variable is engine operating temperature which needs to be high. This is achievable with extended high speed running on motorways and the like but real world operations have found it difficult to maintain engine temperature (stop start nature of urban routes).

See attached paper, for one example of the data.

I should also add that even if electricity is generated in fossil fuel power stations it is still more efficient that burning fuel in an internal combustion engine. Not least because of economies of scale. And whilst you can level that complaint against electric vehicles it is only really applicable to CO2. The really dangerous emissions, and those which are causing serious health problems (c40k deaths a year) are NOx and PM2.5/PM10. The bulk of which are emitted by the diesel engines of buses in cities. As an example, buses account for over half of transport related NOx in the London Road Air Quality Management Area in Edinburgh.

The attached research paper is five years old, and does not deal with Euro VI. I can't point to hard evidence, but as I understand it the very high temperature at which Euro VI operates (and therefore does achieve a very low rate of pollution) is a significant contribution to the increase in vehicle fires. In respect of the earlier post, Stagecoach has *not* ordered electric double deckers, it is merely a bid to the ultra-low emission bus scheme at this stage.
The Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership (www.lowcvp.org.uk) has more up-to-date info on low pollution options.

 

[ericlesley]

The attached research paper is five years old, and does not deal with Euro VI. I can't point to hard evidence, but as I understand it the very high temperature at which Euro VI operates (and therefore does achieve a very low rate of pollution) is a significant contribution to the increase in vehicle fires. In respect of the earlier post, Stagecoach has *not* ordered electric double deckers, it is merely a bid to the ultra-low emission bus scheme at this stage.
The Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership (www.lowcvp.org.uk) has more up-to-date info on low pollution options.

In the paper EEV is euro VI. And it deals extensively with the technologies used. Not sure the age is relevant.

Sorry to repeat myself but low carbon is different to low NOx and PM. Euro standards are aimed at reducing the later 2, in particular. And it is those particles which cause the most damage to human health in cities.

 

[ericlesley]

The attached research paper is five years old, and does not deal with Euro VI. I can't point to hard evidence, but as I understand it the very high temperature at which Euro VI operates (and therefore does achieve a very low rate of pollution) is a significant contribution to the increase in vehicle fires. In respect of the earlier post, Stagecoach has *not* ordered electric double deckers, it is merely a bid to the ultra-low emission bus scheme at this stage.
The Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership (www.lowcvp.org.uk) has more up-to-date info on low pollution options.

Sorry to go off topic, but here's a paper from 2017 that shows, similarly, that euro vi emissions are higher in real world tests. And especially in urban operation.

"Our analyses revealed that up to 85% of the NOx emissions measured during the tests performed are not taken into consideration if the boundary conditions for data exclusion set in the current legislation are applied. Moreover, it was found that the highest NOx emissions were measured during
urban operation."

 

[NotATrainspott]

The increased upfront capital costs of electric buses aren't really a blocker to adoption, since the savings in operational costs are so large. Proterra themselves offer a battery leasing scheme which drops the capital cost to the equivalent of a traditional bus while the operational cost plus leasing charge is still reduced. That scheme makes a lot of sense for small operators, like university campus shuttles. For a major regional bus operator like Lothian it would be easier to self-fund or get separate financing to buy the buses outright. A commercial-style loan from government is a no-brainer in a situation like this, since the standard economic incentive aligns with the wider societal incentive to reduce pollution.

I was aware of the ADL/BYD offering. However, as far as I can tell it still represents a standard bus chassis being fitted with batteries. While this might work, it can't be as successful a vehicle as a bus designed from the ground up to be electric. Shoving all the batteries into the rear of the bus where the engine would have been doesn't make any sense unless you want to minimise the change from your existing designs (e.g. you build 'glider' buses minus the running gearon your standard production line which are then electrified in a separate process). Car manufacturers have been trying that for years and it has never worked. As soon as a manufacturer comes along with an electric-first and electric-only design (the Tesla Model S, X and 3) it does work, and the rest of the industry has to scramble to keep up.

For an electric double-decker it looks pretty certain that the battery will have to be below the floor. There is plenty of space available between the axles of a modern bus for a single flat layer of battery cells, which would add structural integrity to the bodyshell. What might be more challenging in that world is a normal second door just behind the front axle, since the floor would need to be much higher up than normal for a low-floor bus. While there are many operators which don't use two-door buses, manufacturers don't produce fundamentally different designs. Lothian have just converted a bunch of ex-London buses and plated over the second door; presumably it'd be equally possible to add in a second door onto a single-door vehicle.

My idea for a two-door bus design would have doors only ahead of the front axle and behind the rear axle. Somewhat inevitably the bus would end up resembling the Boris Bus. There'd be a 'one way' system with passengers boarding via the front and exiting via the rear door. There'd be a gentle slope down from the main floor to the doors at either end. The single-door equivalent would be identical ahead of the rear axle but would have a conventional seated rear.

 

[ericlesley]

As soon as a manufacturer comes along with an electric-first and electric-only design (the Tesla Model S, X and 3) it does work, and the rest of the industry has to scramble to keep up.

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.

The increased upfront capital costs of electric buses aren't really a blocker to adoption, since the savings in operational costs are so large. Proterra themselves offer a battery leasing scheme which drops the capital cost to the equivalent of a traditional bus while the operational cost plus leasing charge is still reduced. That scheme makes a lot of sense for small operators, like university campus shuttles. For a major regional bus operator like Lothian it would be easier to self-fund or get separate financing to buy the buses outright. A commercial-style loan from government is a no-brainer in a situation like this, since the standard economic incentive aligns with the wider societal incentive to reduce pollution.

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:

 

[VioletEclipse]

Quite interesting, as for bus layout I think a door at the front and another behind the rear axle would be better for passengers even if it wasn't necessary.

Also I am aware that purchasing electric buses isn't completely cost free and efficient, but nothing is!

 

[VioletEclipse]

Also an interesting graph about trolleybuses and battery electric buses, but I think trolleybuses only make sense where there are already overhead cables.

 

[ericlesley]

Also I am aware that purchasing electric buses isn't completely cost free and efficient, but nothing is!

sorry, hope you didn't think i was patronising you, or anyone else....

but I think trolleybuses only make sense where there are already overhead cables.

Absolutely, if the infrastructure is already there it makes perfect sense... But I did read that Berlin and Stockholm are seriously considering re-introducing trolleybuses (because on intensive routes it is very efficient, you get 100% productivity and multiple routes can share the infrastructure giving you low marginal costs for adding extra routes)... However, I'm only getting this secondhand so would like to verify. Prague is a good example though. I guess the key is that a trolleybus isn't a trolleybus anymore. Its an electric bus that recharges from trolleybus infrastructure. Ultimately, it comes down to the bottom line of infrastructure costs. If I could be bothered I'd run up a spreadsheet and do some calculations comparing BEB to opportunity charging to IMC (maybe in the Christmas holidays). I've uploaded a presentation from Cologne about their experiences with e-buses and opportunity charging. Worth a look if you're interested.

The market will shift to electric buses pretty quickly over the next few years, I think. This article here says it's going to move pretty quickly in Germany, albeit with significant government intervention. Its a really good website for keeping up with e-bus news:

https://www.electrive.com/2018/11/04/five-german-cities-to-order-3000-e-buses/

Back to Edinburgh, I think they should only order e-buses from this point but would need the Scottish Government to support. Flash chargers could be installed at the end of most routes, meaning you could buy buses with smaller batteries. Not sure whether this would work for the really intensive services though. Realistically any buses ordered now are probably still going to be in service in 2030, it would be crazy for diesel buses to still be running round Edinburgh then. The pollution is horrible in places, you can taste it in the air. But then again, there's not really much effort put in to keeping bus lanes clear, so maybe that's an indication of where priorities lie.

Glotz-Richter (attached)makes a point that governments should financially support e-buses 100% because the environmental benefits are so high:
"Looking at the overall impacts, it would take roughly 100 electric cars to achieve the same environmental relief
as can be gained from one 18 m electric bus. This fact makes it difficult to understand why there is not a hundredfold
financial support for e-buses and there is no target in European policy papers for the electrification of urban buses."

 

[NotATrainspott]

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.

The Proterra finance model makes sense since they're able to get good economies of scale. It's quite possible that the economies of scale aren't there for UK electric buses yet, meaning they do need that grant money to make it feasible. For instance, Lothian would have to consider how to maintain their buses. If they're essentially just a hobby they only need a handful of engineers, possibly from the manufacturer, to look after them. Any serious deployment would require re-training and re-equipping staff and amending long-standing operating procedures. When the railways do a change that big with rolling stock, it often comes with new depots set up by the manufacturer and ready to maintain the fleet from day 1. How would Lothian adopt the electric buses? Would they have to convert an entire depot at once, or run two parallel operating procedures? Sure, a lot of the work will be the same, but the heavy maintenance will have a different pattern.

 

[VioletEclipse]

sorry, hope you didn't think i was patronising you, or anyone else..."

I'm sorry, I was tired and I didn't read the post fully, I do apologise.

Also yeah, we would need the government's support here, I need to properly read and reply to posts when I have time to and I'm not just on my phone.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

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.