8010 Posted April 15, 2018 Report Share Posted April 15, 2018 18 minutes ago, MAX BRT said: Cost has come down quickly. It is presumably about $600,000 to $700,000 USD for one electric 40 footer currently and falling all the time. It is expected to continue to fall as these buses are mass produced and lithium miners ramp up production. Oh, they aren't too badly priced then. I Renner when they first started coming out and they were about $1 million per unit. As much as I would like to see this trial succeed, I really don't want VTC's fleet to be replaced by just Battery-Electric buses as they can have reliability issues as listed by other members. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martin607 Posted April 15, 2018 Report Share Posted April 15, 2018 1 minute ago, 8010 said: As much as I would like to see this trial succeed, I really don't want VTC's fleet to be replaced by just Battery-Electric buses as they can have reliability issues as listed by other members. Agreed. It is good to have a trial. I drive a battery car myself and it's great providing you know how to plan. So far I have always managed to get home even if I only have a couple of miles left on the battery :-) What concerns me is politicians thinking they have found a magic solution. They haven't. If you compare battery electric to mains electric (trolleys), the BEVs obviously have flexibility, but trolleys don't have charging waits and are somewhat more energy efficient (lower weight). Add some batteries to a trolley and then you could get the best of both worlds:- extensive off-wire range and flexibility but freedom from charging waits, because you have done the necessary battery charging under the wires. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAX BRT Posted April 15, 2018 Report Share Posted April 15, 2018 39 minutes ago, MAX BRT said: Cost has come down quickly. It is presumably about $600,000 to $700,000 USD for one electric 40 footer currently and falling all the time. It is expected to continue to fall as these buses are mass produced and lithium miners ramp up production. I should add that those numbers are for Proterra buses in the US. It may be that NFI and Nova aren't matching that kind of price in Vancouver, especially depending on the size of the battery pack (battery size varies according to the need and the charging scheme). There are lots of variables. Also, there is cost for charging stations which is not included in those numbers. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martin607 Posted April 15, 2018 Report Share Posted April 15, 2018 2 minutes ago, MAX BRT said: I should add that those numbers are for Proterra buses in the US. It may be that NFI and Nova aren't matching that kind of price in Vancouver, especially depending on the size of the battery pack (battery size varies according to the need and the charging scheme). There are lots of variables. Also, there is cost for charging stations which is not included in those numbers. As far as I know Proterra is a privately funded company. The apparently low price may be a bit of a "loss-leader" to attract business. New Flyer is a quoted company and obviously aims to make a profit on every bus it sells. Both companies are competing in the US market so I don't know how NFI wins battery bus orders (e.g .100 ordered by Los Angeles last autumn) if Proterra is underbidding them by say $200,000 per bus. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Express691 Posted April 16, 2018 Author Report Share Posted April 16, 2018 The oroject is supposed to cost $7mil for everything. 4 buses and infrastructure network and more. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YVR Posted April 16, 2018 Report Share Posted April 16, 2018 Hello members, my first post so if I'm not in the correct thread or if someone posted this elsewhere, please go easy on me. Heard this story today from a driver. A battery powered 60ft articulated bus was en-route from California to Vancouver for a type trial. The bus was being carried on a semi with a very long trailer that accommodates the vehicle. Everything went well until they were a couple of blocks from the transit center and a corner was cut to sharply, the bus hit something and was knocked off the trailer and landed wheels up on the ground. Immediate panic, as the bus is supposed to be front and center for unveiling in front of Horgan and Moonbeam in a few days. Trolley wires had to be lowered to allow cranes and wreckers to pick up the bus and put it back on the trailer. Parts including a windshield had to be Express shipped in, as well the bus has to have body repairs and paint work before the unveiling. I imagine the semi driver is looking for a new job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marlow1331 Posted April 16, 2018 Report Share Posted April 16, 2018 2 minutes ago, YVR said: Hello members, my first post so if I'm not in the correct thread or if someone posted this elsewhere, please go easy on me. Heard this story today from a driver. A battery powered 60ft articulated bus was en-route from California to Vancouver for a type trial. The bus was being carried on a semi with a very long trailer that accommodates the vehicle. Everything went well until they were a couple of blocks from the transit center and a corner was cut to sharply, the bus hit something and was knocked off the trailer and landed wheels up on the ground. Immediate panic, as the bus is supposed to be front and center for unveiling in front of Horgan and Moonbeam in a few days. Trolley wires had to be lowered to allow cranes and wreckers to pick up the bus and put it back on the trailer. Parts including a windshield had to be Express shipped in, as well the bus has to have body repairs and paint work before the unveiling. I imagine the semi driver is looking for a new job. Yes this is correct. The bus is alright now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YVR Posted April 16, 2018 Report Share Posted April 16, 2018 Do any members have more detail on this incident. It would be nice to know which manufacturer, and when the unveiling will occur. Perhaps someone has a couple of photo's of the accident! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Large Cat Posted April 16, 2018 Report Share Posted April 16, 2018 1 hour ago, YVR said: Hello members, my first post so if I'm not in the correct thread or if someone posted this elsewhere, please go easy on me. Heard this story today from a driver. A battery powered 60ft articulated bus was en-route from California to Vancouver for a type trial. The bus was being carried on a semi with a very long trailer that accommodates the vehicle. Everything went well until they were a couple of blocks from the transit center and a corner was cut to sharply, the bus hit something and was knocked off the trailer and landed wheels up on the ground. Immediate panic, as the bus is supposed to be front and center for unveiling in front of Horgan and Moonbeam in a few days. Trolley wires had to be lowered to allow cranes and wreckers to pick up the bus and put it back on the trailer. Parts including a windshield had to be Express shipped in, as well the bus has to have body repairs and paint work before the unveiling. I imagine the semi driver is looking for a new job. LOL. A much better version of the story I heard. When I saw the bus late at night it was already right side up on the trailer again, so I didn't even know it fell off. Oak and Marine. Such a wonderful corner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Citaro Posted April 16, 2018 Report Share Posted April 16, 2018 3 hours ago, YVR said: Hello members, my first post so if I'm not in the correct thread or if someone posted this elsewhere, please go easy on me. Heard this story today from a driver. A battery powered 60ft articulated bus was en-route from California to Vancouver for a type trial. The bus was being carried on a semi with a very long trailer that accommodates the vehicle. Everything went well until they were a couple of blocks from the transit center and a corner was cut to sharply, the bus hit something and was knocked off the trailer and landed wheels up on the ground. Immediate panic, as the bus is supposed to be front and center for unveiling in front of Horgan and Moonbeam in a few days. Trolley wires had to be lowered to allow cranes and wreckers to pick up the bus and put it back on the trailer. Parts including a windshield had to be Express shipped in, as well the bus has to have body repairs and paint work before the unveiling. I imagine the semi driver is looking for a new job. Based on what I know, this appears to be an exaggerated version of what really happened. This incident appears to have occured the night prior to the event, which means that they would have had a mere 12 or so hours to repair the vehicle, which photos indicate to have suffered little to no damage. The only potential damage I observed in the photo of the bus following this incident was a missing curbside mirror, which I suspect may have just been removed as a precaution during transport. If this vehicle did in fact flip “wheels up” (upside down) as you suggested, the damage would be very noticeable, it would not have been featured in the event, and the bus itself would likely be a write-off. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YVR Posted April 18, 2018 Report Share Posted April 18, 2018 Do we have the manufacturer and model of this "incident bus"? Supposedly it was being transported from California. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Citaro Posted April 18, 2018 Report Share Posted April 18, 2018 1 hour ago, YVR said: Do we have the manufacturer and model of this "incident bus"? Supposedly it was being transported from California. It’s a baby blue New Flyer XE60 (apparently the only one in existence). 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tensorflow Posted May 3, 2018 Report Share Posted May 3, 2018 How long will the battery of an E-bus last (as in still being reasonably chargeable)? No one seems to be having a conclusion on this problem. Most of the laptops I had in my life had their battery dies in 2-3 years, if this is also the case for E-bus, how much would a battery cost? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
translink Posted May 3, 2018 Report Share Posted May 3, 2018 6 minutes ago, tensorflow said: How long will the battery of an E-bus last (as in still being reasonably chargeable)? No one seems to be having a conclusion on this problem. Most of the laptops I had in my life had their battery dies in 2-3 years, if this is also the case for E-bus, how much would a battery cost? ... are we really comparing a $700 piece of plastic to a $300,000 hunk of metal? Seriously? How about we compare it to something similar.... like a Prius. Average lifespan of a Prius battery stands at 15-ish years. So right now there are first Gen Prius that are getting into that time span where the batteries aren’t nearly as efficient as they used to be. Replacement batteries are anywhere between $2300 and $2500. So when you scale that up, looking at maybe $23,000 and $25,000 for new batteries. Probably looking at an average life span of the battery to be about 20-25 years. So about the life of the bus. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8010 Posted May 3, 2018 Report Share Posted May 3, 2018 1 hour ago, translink said: ... are we really comparing a $700 piece of plastic to a $300,000 hunk of metal? Seriously? How about we compare it to something similar.... like a Prius. Average lifespan of a Prius battery stands at 15-ish years. So right now there are first Gen Prius that are getting into that time span where the batteries aren’t nearly as efficient as they used to be. Replacement batteries are anywhere between $2300 and $2500. So when you scale that up, looking at maybe $23,000 and $25,000 for new batteries. Probably looking at an average life span of the battery to be about 20-25 years. So about the life of the bus. Battery lifespans of XE40s are supposedly 12 years, I'm assuming LFSes are about the same. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tensorflow Posted May 3, 2018 Report Share Posted May 3, 2018 2 hours ago, translink said: ... are we really comparing a $700 piece of plastic to a $300,000 hunk of metal? Seriously? How about we compare it to something similar.... like a Prius. Average lifespan of a Prius battery stands at 15-ish years. So right now there are first Gen Prius that are getting into that time span where the batteries aren’t nearly as efficient as they used to be. Replacement batteries are anywhere between $2300 and $2500. So when you scale that up, looking at maybe $23,000 and $25,000 for new batteries. Probably looking at an average life span of the battery to be about 20-25 years. So about the life of the bus. But I suppose Prius are not as heavily used as buses, at least not those used on heavy duty routes, right? 49 minutes ago, 8010 said: Battery lifespans of XE40s are supposedly 12 years, I'm assuming LFSes are about the same. hmm that sounds good if they actually reach 12 years. So we just need to replace it once in its lifetime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bus_Medic Posted May 3, 2018 Report Share Posted May 3, 2018 (Ahem) 800 000$ hunk of metal 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brzyski Posted May 5, 2018 Report Share Posted May 5, 2018 Laptop and automobile batteries are made from very different materials (Li-ion polymer vs. perhaps lithium phosphate/titanate) and they have very different specs. The comparison is not justified. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martin607 Posted May 7, 2018 Report Share Posted May 7, 2018 I wonder if 12 years is a bit optimistic. Are the manufacturers guaranteeing that? Moscow in Russia has just awarded two contracts each of 100 battery buses and they expect battery replacement at about 8 years. The manufacturers will have to pay for new batteries after 8 years. And that rather ties in with car manufacturers who also give an 8 year guarantee on their battery electric cars. The other factor is battery performance. Even if you get 8 years life, the battery capacity will gradually fall. Unless the capacity falls to below 80% you don't get free replacement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bus_Medic Posted May 8, 2018 Report Share Posted May 8, 2018 Not an exact apples to apples comparison, but our BAE hybrids in Toronto will get about 6 years out of the 16 LiFePo4- lithium iron phosphate- (comprised of A123 26650 cells) battery modules in real world service, give or take. A plug in long range electric application will obviously have different charge cycling characteristics. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
translink Posted May 8, 2018 Report Share Posted May 8, 2018 On 5/3/2018 at 4:07 PM, tensorflow said: But I suppose Prius are not as heavily used as buses, at least not those used on heavy duty routes, right? I mean Prius aren’t being used as taxi cabs in this city cause they aren’t workhorses at all. /sarcasm 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M. Parsons Posted May 9, 2018 Report Share Posted May 9, 2018 On May 7, 2018 at 5:18 PM, martin607 said: I wonder if 12 years is a bit optimistic. Are the manufacturers guaranteeing that? BYD guarantees their batteries for 12 years. I believe BYD and Proterra offer the option to lease batteries which would provide a lower initial cost of the bus, with the battery lease theoretically paid for by lower fuel and maintenance costs of the electric bus. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake M Posted May 10, 2018 Report Share Posted May 10, 2018 On 4/15/2018 at 10:14 AM, martin607 said: Agreed. It is good to have a trial. I drive a battery car myself and it's great providing you know how to plan. So far I have always managed to get home even if I only have a couple of miles left on the battery What concerns me is politicians thinking they have found a magic solution. They haven't. If you compare battery electric to mains electric (trolleys), the BEVs obviously have flexibility, but trolleys don't have charging waits and are somewhat more energy efficient (lower weight). Add some batteries to a trolley and then you could get the best of both worlds:- extensive off-wire range and flexibility but freedom from charging waits, because you have done the necessary battery charging under the wires. If I'm not mistaken I believe that's what the Silver Line is in Boston (though the non trolley portion could in fact be diesel) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Community Shuttle Posted May 18, 2018 Report Share Posted May 18, 2018 On 5/10/2018 at 2:47 PM, Blake M said: If I'm not mistaken I believe that's what the Silver Line is in Boston (though the non trolley portion could in fact be diesel) It's not. Silver Line currently uses a mix of straight CNG and diesel/electric (the latter uses the trolley wire) buses with battery electric units to come. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Transit geek Posted May 23, 2018 Report Share Posted May 23, 2018 On 5/17/2018 at 10:51 PM, Community Shuttle said: It's not. Silver Line currently uses a mix of straight CNG and diesel/electric (the latter uses the trolley wire) buses with battery electric units to come. To further clarify, SL1, SL2, and the new SL3 have primarily used so-called "dual-mode" buses (electric only via trolley wires and diesel-electric generation), with several battery-electrics added for the SL3. CNG and hybrid-only buses are used only on the SL4 and SL5 as they would not be able to operate through the tunnel used by the other services. No news yet about the possible replacement of the "dual-mode" buses with battery-electric-capable hybrid buses. On 5/10/2018 at 5:47 PM, Blake M said: Add some batteries to a trolley and then you could get the best of both worlds:- extensive off-wire range and flexibility but freedom from charging waits, because you have done the necessary battery charging under the wires. Which is exactly what Dayton, Ohio is procuring - read this before you consider whether Vancouver could join the bandwagon! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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