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> "Currently, an engine and a diesel tank are much cheaper to buy and especially maintain." Yes, diesel is cheaper to buy than battery trains. But pretty much
by Reason077 4y ago
> "Currently, an engine and a diesel tank are much cheaper to buy and especially maintain."
Yes, diesel is cheaper to buy than battery trains. But pretty much everyone, including the main article here, agrees that maintenance costs are much lower with electric trains compared to diesel. I'd expect that (at least once the technology matures) this will also be true of battery electrics.
The point is, if you start with the assumption that diesel is unacceptable and routes must be electrified - for reasons like climate change, toxic air pollution, route reliability, passenger comfort, etc, then there are many routes where battery electrics are going to greatly reduce costs compared to installing overhead wires on every section of track.
> "There's a battery version of the Stadler FLIRT [2]. It went 224 km (at about 80 km/h) on one battery charge recently [3]. They will be in operation for DB from the end of 2022 on."
Yes, I expect we'll see a lot more battery electric units introduced in Europe in the coming years. There are so many routes where they make perfect sense.