Electric Buses

[Daveography]

A big plug for electric buses, but Edmonton council struggles with financial jolt and changing technology
Betamax versus VHS reared its ugly head Wednesday at City Hall in a debate about electric buses.

After a successful winter pilot project, several council members want to go big on an electric. But with technology quickly evolving, the city risks getting stuck with an outdated system if council chooses the wrong type of bus.

Transit chief Eddie Robar was a Betamax fan, Sony’s 1975 version of the videotape. Like most early adopters, he lived through that painful switch, forced to trash a better technology when VHS outsold it and forced it from the shelves.

Robar had a warning for council: “If you choose a type of vehicle and you choose wrong … that capital (investment) could be obsolete in a short period of time.”

The stakes are high. The city needs to buy 108 buses in the next two years. Whatever council chooses — diesel or one of two kinds of electric — the city will have those buses for 20 years.

Full Story (Edmonton Journal)

 

[Daveography]

Edmonton pushes for large purchase of electric buses
Edmonton is pushing for what could be the largest number of electric buses that any city in North America has ever purchased.

“We’re breaking a new trail here,” said Coun. Scott McKeen. “So, the bus company should reward Edmonton with good prices.”

On Tuesday, the city will propose council approve purchasing 25 to 40 electric buses, for $30.6 million — depending on the unit price.

The purchase would use funding that was initially slated for 49 diesel buses, to grow the bus fleet.

Full Story (Metro Edmonton)

 

[Daveography]

Electric buses set to roll out on streets of Edmonton - Transforming Edmonton

Edmonton Transit Service has given the city a sneak peek of its new Battery-Electric buses before the clean, green and quiet vehicles join the fleet and glide the streets for the first time in early August. “What a good day,” said Ryan Birch, Director of Transit Operations for ETS. “It’s a good...

transforming.edmonton.ca

 

[JNO1]

I saw this at the Government Center Transit Station on Tuesday.

 

[_urbanite]

I saw this at the Government Center Transit Station on Tuesday.
View attachment 261786

Now that's a good looking bus

 

[Edmcowboy11]

Well I hope they do well for ETS. Would like to see these succeed so that they will choose to order more after those first 40.

 

[ION]

40 down, 960 to go... Someone contact Arrival and get them to open a Bus Factory here in Alberta... Or Proterra... Or Novabus... I'm not picky. I just want Alberta to have an all electric fleet by 2030... And Albertans to have good paying green jobs, which to me is entirely doable since Shenzhen was already able to go 100% electric 2 years ago thanks to its hometown hero company, BYD...

 

[ION]

1000 buses per year capacity in about a 100,000 sq ft factory size. The company wants to open 1000 micro factories worldwide in most major markets by 2026. An audaciously daring timeline if there ever was one but the project is brilliant if you ask me. Lots of smaller factories employing locals creating plastic body electric delivery and transit vehicles.. York County, SC lands 1st Arrival factory...

 

[jason403]

The new electric busses are fantastic from a noise perspective. I live along a bus route, and the sound of the electric busses seem like 75% quieter within my household. Also nice to have that little less diesel exhaust right next to my home.

 

[RH van der Rohe]

1000 buses per year capacity in about a 100,000 sq ft factory size. The company wants to open 1000 micro factories worldwide in most major markets by 2026. An audaciously daring timeline if there ever was one but the project is brilliant if you ask me. Lots of smaller factories employing locals creating plastic body electric delivery and transit vehicles.. York County, SC lands 1st Arrival factory...

A factory of that size is probably a knocked down kit assembly facility, all parts would be stamped and painted elsewhere and just put together at the plant. The job impact would not be what we normally associate with vehicle assembly plants. I am impressed with the business model, smaller facility of three to four hundred people would operate much more efficiently than a mega plant.

 

[ION]

They'll be using simple screw on plastic body panels like the Smart Fortwo and Saturn line from GM of the 1990's. They colour is embedded in the plastic saving a ton of cash... Watching Sandy Munro videos online, he says by Tesla using stainless steel for their Cybertruck for example they save $500M off the top of the project. A factory could be built for a fraction of the cost if all Tesla wanted to do was pump out a niche run of say 50,000/year which is much like Arrival's and Phoenix aka Local Motor's plan for simple designed skateboard vehicles... Another one in fact was announced this week, Alpha Motors, which borrows a lot of its design on the old GDR Trabant...

 

[CplKlinger]

Going before the Executive Committee on April 12: A motion for the committee to recommend to council that the city borrow $14.5 million from the Canadian Infrastructure Bank for the purchase of 20 additional electric buses, which would replace diesel buses reaching the end of their life spans. If this passes, and council as a whole eventually approves it, the city would contribute an additional $12.5 of its own money towards the purchase. This would bring our fleet of electric buses to 60; the maximum that our current infrastructure at the Kathleen Andrews and Centennial Garages can support without needed expansion. The loan would be re-paid using the cost-savings on maintenance for the electric buses, and it would give us the largest fleet of electric buses in Canada; just beating Toronto's fleet of 59.

 

[jason403]

Going before the Executive Committee on April 12: A motion for the committee to recommend to council that the city borrow $14.5 million from the Canadian Infrastructure Bank for the purchase of 20 additional electric buses, which would replace diesel buses reaching the end of their life spans. If this passes, and council as a whole eventually approves it, the city would contribute an additional $12.5 of its own money towards the purchase. This would bring our fleet of electric buses to 60; the maximum that our current infrastructure at the Kathleen Andrews and Centennial Garages can support without needed expansion. The loan would be re-paid using the cost-savings on maintenance for the electric buses, and it would give us the largest fleet of electric buses in Canada; just beating Toronto's fleet of 59.

So thrilled about this. Have recently purchased a house adjacent to a bus route, and it is absolutely amazing how quiet the electric busses are. Also doesn't hurt that diesel exhaust isn't being expelled next to my home. If these busses actually turn out to be cost effective (or slightly negative) I'd hope the city converts the whole fleet as diesel busses get phased out.

 

[Platinum107]

Yep, and I hope they can find electric busses that look a little more attractive These ones look alright but...

 

[CplKlinger]

Yep, and I hope they can find electric busses that look a little more attractive These ones look alright but...

Yeah, I think the blue ones are alright. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I really dislike the blue and white ones. To me, they look more like Prettora demonstration buses than ETS buses.