On 16/10/17 12:31,prescottt@... [TramsDownUnder] wrote:
>

>

> People may be interested in this - it's electric transit but not down

> under yet.

>

>

> As some may be aware, there's a vigorous all-out push in many European

> cities, as well as China, to electrify their bus fleets (what a

> different world from Australasia!) and there's been an umbrella EU

> project in Europe, Zeus, guiding this. As most would be aware, there

> have been numerous trials and in-service applications of autonomous

> (battery or battery/capacitor) electric buses for some time now. There

> are even some of these buses in Australia.


Well the UK appears to be going backwards as the electric/hybrids are
not reliable.

I was in Oxford last week - on my previous visit I noticed that a lot
hybrid buses were running with their engines running all the time -
obviously failed batteries. This visit, most of the hybrid buses had
disappeared. Most of the fleet I saw were 'conventional' diesels.

The hybrids originally appeared because the local council put strict
noise and emission controls on buses operating in the historic city
centre. My guess is the planning control has expired and the fleet
operators took the opportunity to unload their hybrids onto some one
else (like London), and replace them with simpler diesels.