4 ms·

City buses are where EV is needed the most IMO. The stop and go constantly, barely on the freeway, and this is the kind of driving where EV shines. And they b

by ars 4y ago

City buses are where EV is needed the most IMO. The stop and go constantly, barely on the freeway, and this is the kind of driving where EV shines. And they bletch tons of diesel exhaust on city streets. (Unlike trucks which are mostly in remote areas.) They also all return to a depot, so there's a good place for them to recharge. The only issue I can see is if there's enough time for them to sit and recharge. But I think it should work out with some good scheduling, since obviously there's much less service at night. > 18-wheeler segments That's not going to work so well. Don't they sleep in their trucks on the side of the road? 18 wheeler cabs are almost always on the move, there's not really a lot of time for them to sit and recharge. I expect 18 wheelers to be one of the last segments to go electric. They will only go electric when every truck stop has rows of fast chargers (so they can sleep and charge), and there's as many chargers as gas stations. This will take a long time.

pornel 4y ago
Buses are pretty bad in absolute terms, but they’re much cleaner on per-person basis (even taking into account they have low occupancy at times.) Anyway, still it’d be nice to electrify them all, at least for air quality and noise.
- ars 4y ago
  > but they’re much cleaner on per-person basis That's not true. They might have lower CO2, but they are NOT cleaner. Diesel is uniquely bad in terms of air quality. Gasoline cars are very very clean. Here's a study: https://www.driving.co.uk/news/public-transport-worse-than-driving-for-exposure-to-air-pollution/ https://www.driving.co.uk/news/public-transport-worse-than-d...
Karrot_Kream 4y ago
Mounting large enough batteries for bus EVs is a challenge. Batteries are already a challenge on consumer EVs, but buses are an order of magnitude larger, and generally energy required to propel a vehicle forward is more than linear in the weight of a vehicle. Right now most implementations are in trolley buses that use batteries to compensate for portions of the line that don't have power. I imagine this will change soon but currently most buses that are not powered by gas are using hydrogen fuel cells due to energy requirements.
- pornel 4y ago
  BYD already has a massive fleet of BEV busses in China.
- gmac 4y ago
  Really? A local bus company here in the UK now has an all-electric fleet: https://thebiglemon.com/ https://thebiglemon.com/
- dver 4y ago
  https://www.proterra.com/ https://www.proterra.com/ Work here, we're building them everyday!
martinald 4y ago
One of the limiting factors for electrifying bus fleets (apart from the additional cost of the buses themselves) is getting enough power to the depots from the grid. Each bus can take 100kW easily for a few hours, so a depot with 50 buses requires a 5MW connection, which is a lot if there isn't spare capacity on the grid near it. A short term problem for sure but it is causing enormous problems in London (grid is really streched even for new residential towers, so adding a multiMW connection for depots is not trivial whatsoever).
r_hoods_ghost 4y ago
Fully electric buses are pretty common in the UK now and a lot of the rest are hybrid, at least in cities. It makes a huge difference to the air quality when you're on a narrow street that has a bus every couple of minutes like in parts of Manchester and London. I imagine as the fleet turns over they'll get ever more common, although I imagine the lifetime of a bus is pretty long so it won't be overnight.
hellotomyrars 4y ago
Long haul truckers don’t usually just pull off somewhere random and sleep. They sleep in places made for them to park generally. Truck stops aren’t necessarily set up for it in the parking but if the charging is fast enough to get them through without jamming up the works, then it is no problem. But it isn’t impossible to refactor the parking places to accommodate them either. Plenty of long haul are also team drivers so they switch when they hit their legal limit for consecutive driving hours. So the downtime for charging is a bigger issue in that arrangement. But there is still a non-trivial number of drivers who are home every night and only drive in a limited area. Range is still a sticking point, but if it is long enough then those trucks are ideal for an EV since they have regularly scheduled downtime.
- warmwaffles 4y ago
  Short haul trucks are going to be relatively easy to target for electric. That last mile from a distribution center or local delivery is going to be a quick one to solve.
rascul 4y ago
> > 18-wheeler segments > That's not going to work so well. Don't they sleep in their trucks on the side of the road? 18 wheeler cabs are almost always on the move, there's not really a lot of time for them to sit and recharge. I expect 18 wheelers to be one of the last segments to go electric. Many of the trucks are out and back within a day, and need to travel only a few hundred miles. These trucks can potentially charge overnight and be ready the next day.
m4rtink 4y ago
Or you could have a Troleybus: https://ku.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troleybus https://ku.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troleybus Does not need any rails and can navigate much steeper gradients & does not produce any local exhaust emissions. They together with trams form the backbone of publich transport here in Brno, Czech Republic. Some city quarters are on top of a very steep gradient that buses have an issue to climb yet troley buses don't have a problem due to not really having to lug around a power source, just the powerful electric motor. Most of the new troley buses now also have small bateries, which make it possible to navigate short stretches (couple km) where there are no troleys. This is super useful for both temporary redirections (where a street hosting a troleybus is being recontructed, it can go around without building new troleys) as well as for branching out to multiple destinations from the regular terminus when necessary. The couple kilometers of range are really not a problem as the troleybus changes when traveling under a regular troley wire and thus does not need any dedicated charging stations or charging stops. I really do wonder why more cities, especially in the west don't use more troley buses. My only theory being that they are somehow seen as outdated and not even considered when building new instrastructure.

by ars 4y ago

pornel 4y ago

Buses are pretty bad in absolute terms, but they’re much cleaner on per-person basis (even taking into account they have low occupancy at times.) Anyway, still it’d be nice to electrify them all, at least for air quality and noise.

ars 4y ago
> but they’re much cleaner on per-person basis That's not true. They might have lower CO2, but they are NOT cleaner. Diesel is uniquely bad in terms of air quality. Gasoline cars are very very clean. Here's a study: https://www.driving.co.uk/news/public-transport-worse-than-driving-for-exposure-to-air-pollution/ https://www.driving.co.uk/news/public-transport-worse-than-d...

Karrot_Kream 4y ago

Mounting large enough batteries for bus EVs is a challenge. Batteries are already a challenge on consumer EVs, but buses are an order of magnitude larger, and generally energy required to propel a vehicle forward is more than linear in the weight of a vehicle. Right now most implementations are in trolley buses that use batteries to compensate for portions of the line that don't have power. I imagine this will change soon but currently most buses that are not powered by gas are using hydrogen fuel cells due to energy requirements.

pornel 4y ago
BYD already has a massive fleet of BEV busses in China.
gmac 4y ago
Really? A local bus company here in the UK now has an all-electric fleet: https://thebiglemon.com/ https://thebiglemon.com/
dver 4y ago
https://www.proterra.com/ https://www.proterra.com/ Work here, we're building them everyday!

martinald 4y ago

One of the limiting factors for electrifying bus fleets (apart from the additional cost of the buses themselves) is getting enough power to the depots from the grid. Each bus can take 100kW easily for a few hours, so a depot with 50 buses requires a 5MW connection, which is a lot if there isn't spare capacity on the grid near it. A short term problem for sure but it is causing enormous problems in London (grid is really streched even for new residential towers, so adding a multiMW connection for depots is not trivial whatsoever).

r_hoods_ghost 4y ago

Fully electric buses are pretty common in the UK now and a lot of the rest are hybrid, at least in cities. It makes a huge difference to the air quality when you're on a narrow street that has a bus every couple of minutes like in parts of Manchester and London. I imagine as the fleet turns over they'll get ever more common, although I imagine the lifetime of a bus is pretty long so it won't be overnight.

hellotomyrars 4y ago

Long haul truckers don’t usually just pull off somewhere random and sleep. They sleep in places made for them to park generally. Truck stops aren’t necessarily set up for it in the parking but if the charging is fast enough to get them through without jamming up the works, then it is no problem. But it isn’t impossible to refactor the parking places to accommodate them either. Plenty of long haul are also team drivers so they switch when they hit their legal limit for consecutive driving hours. So the downtime for charging is a bigger issue in that arrangement. But there is still a non-trivial number of drivers who are home every night and only drive in a limited area. Range is still a sticking point, but if it is long enough then those trucks are ideal for an EV since they have regularly scheduled downtime.

warmwaffles 4y ago
Short haul trucks are going to be relatively easy to target for electric. That last mile from a distribution center or local delivery is going to be a quick one to solve.

rascul 4y ago

> > 18-wheeler segments > That's not going to work so well. Don't they sleep in their trucks on the side of the road? 18 wheeler cabs are almost always on the move, there's not really a lot of time for them to sit and recharge. I expect 18 wheelers to be one of the last segments to go electric. Many of the trucks are out and back within a day, and need to travel only a few hundred miles. These trucks can potentially charge overnight and be ready the next day.

m4rtink 4y ago

Or you could have a Troleybus: https://ku.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troleybus https://ku.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troleybus Does not need any rails and can navigate much steeper gradients & does not produce any local exhaust emissions. They together with trams form the backbone of publich transport here in Brno, Czech Republic. Some city quarters are on top of a very steep gradient that buses have an issue to climb yet troley buses don't have a problem due to not really having to lug around a power source, just the powerful electric motor. Most of the new troley buses now also have small bateries, which make it possible to navigate short stretches (couple km) where there are no troleys. This is super useful for both temporary redirections (where a street hosting a troleybus is being recontructed, it can go around without building new troleys) as well as for branching out to multiple destinations from the regular terminus when necessary. The couple kilometers of range are really not a problem as the troleybus changes when traveling under a regular troley wire and thus does not need any dedicated charging stations or charging stops. I really do wonder why more cities, especially in the west don't use more troley buses. My only theory being that they are somehow seen as outdated and not even considered when building new instrastructure.