Canberra's first of 12 electric buses charging up ready for next year

Ian, thanks – a well-considered post.
I’d also like to highlight your reference to reduced maintenance cost of EV vs ICE. A full EV does not require oil or oil filters, and if the bus also offers regenerative braking (which uses momentum to return a charge to the batteries while slowing the vehicle down) then brake linings and fluid requires less frequent replacement. Annual running cost of an electric bus would therefore be less than an ICE bus, with less environmental impact overall.
All that said, it’s a visionary trial by local govt. My guess is that we’re more likely to end up in years to come with batteries in cars and hydrogen (and smaller batteries) powering larger vehicles – like buses and trucks – with tanks in depots.

Ian,
Minister Steele might be the best person to answer your “business case” style questions regarding the electrification of the bus service. That said, the Minister can’t or won’t provide “business case” /ROI information to the Opposition about LR, so somehow, I doubt that a RiotAct commentator will get more.

Just a personal reflection here. Modern diesels are relatively clean, complying with Euro 5 or 6 standards and are quite fuel efficient.

A bus full of passengers use less fuel and creates less emissions that the equivalent number of passengers driving their cars everyday.

To me, it’d makes a lot more sense to make public transport free (to encourage people out of their cars), then buying expensive electric buses from China.

You actually expressed an opinion by posting this (hehe), but, yes, an unfortunate incident. Fortunately incidents like this are exceptionally rare, and typically occurs as the result of a battery fault in manufacture or a cell breach after significant impact. I recall reading a similar event with a particular Samsung mobile a couple of years ago, but people still use mobile phones. Regardless, no-one wants to risk such an outcome, so the technology and quality continues to be improved with new chemistries being introduced which reduce risk of thermal run-away.
That said, it is clearly twilight in the age of non-renewable fuel-based engines, and so we must start investing in alternate transport solutions as the ramp up can’t happen in a day, month or year. We need to start NOW, and these buses and supporting depot infrastructure are a good start in preparing for the future.

One example, 6 months ago.

You get ridiculed because you selectively google news then think your anecdotes equal data.

Despite actual research being linked to you repeatedly showing that the fire risk from ICE vehicles is far higher than for EVs.

Hey look Pa, I can google too:

https://www.carscoops.com/2022/04/cng-powered-bus-catches-fire-looks-like-a-scene-from-a-hollywood-movie/

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/moving-aapli-bus-catches-fire-on-katol-road/articleshow/90086753.cms

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/flames-engulf-back-glasgow-bus-26652904

Those ICE buses are clearly ticking time bombs.

Not to worry, petrol is a fire retardant so all the surrounding petrol cars will contain the blaze.

At least all the buses are charged next to each other at high rates.
They’ll all fall like dominoes.

Everyone seems to be in denial. We have 3 hour wait times for charging stations for cars that have 3 hours of range.
Many of the charging stations are underground most chargers are designed to limit charging rates while indoors to lower the fire risk.

Gooterz, there’s nothing in your post which is accurate. Do you drive an EV so are talking with experience? Well, I do, and I can advise that I’ve covered almost 50,000 klm around NSW and ACT in mine, and I’ve only needed to wait to charge once so far (and that was for 10 min). My car will cover 450+ klm with a charge, and the longest time I’ve charged for is 40 min (low to high) with a fast charger.
Only a small proportion of commercial chargers are underground. Regardless, charge rates for all are limited by the power infrastructure which supports them, and otherwise the car will only charge at a rate what it’s designed to accept.
The reality is that most EVs will be charged overnight at home from a standard 10a plug anyway, with a drain less that a kettle.

The night proves the sun doesn’t exist either. True. Every night it ceases to exist. Same selective reasoning employed by fossil fuel loyalists.

Where did you get that figure? After a 5 second search on the internet, I found a company specification sheet for that bus which states battery capacity as either 422Kwh or 350Kwh. That’s easily rechargable overnight, and I doubt all buses will arrive back at the depot at 0% anyway. With respect to the impact of charging a number of buses at once, there are numerous supply configurations and scheduling which could mitigate the impact on the local grid, with one clear option to have the depot supported by large batteries themselves.
I read elsewhere the phrase “Fact before opinion please” – very wise indeed.

Sounds like they will spend millions on solar panels to charge millions worth of batteries so buses can be independent of the grid to guarantee they are running on renewables..

Where is the money coming, by the way?

Well, obviously each bus might use 1 MWh per day. But it will be more efficient than running a diesel bus and, in any case, 100% of the ACT’S electricity comes from renewable sources so it’s all good.

100% of the ACT’s electricity is already sourced from renewables, so more more money needs to be spent there.

Probably… sounds like a lot of local tax paying jobs to me so bring it on 🙂

You’re probably looking at like 250-350 Wh/KM – hardly a big deal considering the abundance of photons and electrons compared to imported diesel. I assume there’s around 15,000m2 of bus depot roof space as well – assume around 1KWh/m2/day on average that’s around 15 MWh / year, or around 50,000 kms / year of free fuel from bus depot roof space alone. I’m not sure how imported diesel costs, but I assume 50,000 kms of bus-fuel is not cheap so I would be surprised if the ROI would be over four years for the bus depot rooftop solar. Not sure about the additional capital cost of the buses but I assume at some point it becomes a cost saving as well (before considering the economic benefits from reducing fuel imports).

StuartM, I don’t doubt that the bus has those specs as you describe, but the power requirement to recharge is going to be something to behold, especially when you have a fleet of them to recharge at the depot. Hence my comment about megawatt charging. Solar panels are not going to cut it. You would need three football fields of coverage just for the bus recharging, not to mention some very fancy and costly inverters

Yep spot on, imagine the local jobs that will create. AEMO have roughly estimated around 1/3 increased grid demand if we replace all imported fuel with local energy, I’m sure we’ll cope. And it can be easily automated, grid price linked and storage buffered.

We’ll be fine. The only losers here is OPEC and Russian oil.

A large fleet of autonomous taxis would make better sense. 24×7 door-to-door mobility for all.

100% of the ACT’s electricity is sourced from renewable sources.

So what if they are? Even if completely powered by coal (and it won’t be) – how is this worse than imported diesel?

Renewable offset, slightly different. The grid overall is 30-40% renewable but rising.

Even if powered entirely by coal it’s still a step forward anyway due to EV efficiency vs combustion, and supporting local rather than overseas policy jobs.