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St. Albert Sightings


A. Wong

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The tender has been released for St. Albert's future electric bus fleet.

It's a very interesting, and open, tender.

They'll consider anything between 30-40', they'll consider rapid charge (130 km/ 5 hr plus on street recharging) or

extended battery life (250 km/ 8hr) buses, and they'll consider responses for more than the budgeted $3.2 million.

There are some things a potential supplier has to meet to be pre-qualified, such as 12 year battery life guarantee,

Altoona testing but they'll accept similar models (so if NovaBus suddenly got an electric bus on the market, because the LFS in general is Altoona tested they would be OK. New Flyer, BYD and I believe Proterra have all been Altoona tested

with the actual electric buses).

A 114000 BTU axillary heater is speced (read: diesel fuelled heater).

The budget seems small. $3.2 million is $800,000 per bus, but the fact that recharging equipment is needed, whether at the garage only, or on street as well is where I think it could go over budget. However, they could consider other options like alternate financing, and that is the reason for the inclusion of the various length buses, to allow for a smaller bus to keep within budget. However, there is a full slate of options that are suggested as open to consideration which would include increasing the budget to the meet the highest rated response, disqualifying over budget responses and

awarding the highest in budget response, and there is the option to outright cancel the tender.

New Flyer has worked with Manitoba Hydro, and CNG suppliers have been known to provide incentives for CNG bus purchases, and have had alternate funding arrangements for the fuelling stations. I wonder if one of the bus manufactures could

work with an electric utility to help fund the charging stations?

Should be an interesting 12 months to see what becomes of this.

Nice report sir!

I know that BYD has been offering a 12 year battery life guarantee. I have not seen where competitors are offering that.

Proterra fast-charge buses rely on a battery chemistry that is the most long lasting in terms of cycles but since they charge it and discharge it so often (smaller battery) it is not expected to last more than 8 years, from what I've seen. Perhaps they will offer a 12 year guarantee on their XR extended range bus.

I saw a credible report that LA Metro so far is not getting the range they expected from their BYD buses.

New Flyer is the only OEM I'm aware of that has cold weather electric buses with a diesel fueled heater active in service. Proterra has buses that operate in the cold in Massachusetts but I don't think they use anything but electric heat. The Proterra fast-charge batteries are more impervious to the cold.

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Saw a St Albert bus turning SB on 124 Street from EB on 118 Avenue tonight just before 2100hrs. I checked the St. Albert Transit weekday maps and could not find what route this could have been. I didn't see a rte number display on the rear. Looked like there were some people on board though.

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A bottleneck at the factory means that St. Albertā€™s new electric buses wonā€™t get here until next year, says the head of the cityā€™s transit service.

The city bought three electric buses earlier this year with the help of provincial GreenTRIP funding as part of its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It now plans to buy another four, as the federal and provincial governments chipped in an additional $3 million earlier this month.

Those first three buses were supposed to have arrived earlier this fall. That got pushed back to Dec. 15, and now itā€™s been bumped to January.

The problem was that manufacturer BYD Coach & Bus Ltd. only had one painting booth at its factory, said city transit director Kevin Bamber.

ā€œThey can produce the buses faster than they can get them through their painting booth.ā€

Source: http://www.stalbertgazette.com/article/Environment-File-20161221

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The tender is now out for up to 5 electric buses in any combination ofĀ 30, 35, or 40' lengths.

Only BYD is pre-qualified with their 35' and 40' buses as a result of the prior tender. That makes me wonder if New Flyer even qualified for the previous tender? I don't believe New Flyer has an option for 200 km/ 8 hr range on a single charge yet.Ā 

To be pre-qualified to bid, buses must have a 200 km/ 8 hr range, recharge from 0-100% in 3-6 hours, be battery powered, 12 year warranty on batteries... they'll be replaced at no cost to the City if they fail in 12 years, and any 30' buses being submitted must be substantially similar to the vendors standard Ā 35' and 40' buses. I guess that measn that New Flyer wouldn't be able to submit a MiDi as the 30' componentĀ and Xcelsior for the 35' and 40' component. Makes sense... I'm guessing St. Albert doesn't want to be stuck with a separate body/ chassis to support should they go for 30' buses as part of this tender.

Very interesting... first time an Canadian agency has tendered a second time for electric buses, and they haven't even received their first ones yet.

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