After a year-long trial, the results are in: The ACT’s electric buses are fizzers. But that’s not stopping the territory government from buying a fleet of them.
The alternative fuel bus trial was launched last year in a bid to make public transport emission-free by 2040. It’s part of an ambitious plan by the territory to reach zero net emissions by 2045. As part of the test, two electric buses and one hybrid bus were placed into rotation, with data collected on their fuel energy efficiency, range, emissions and whole of life costs.
The results were lackluster. While diesel engine buses only missed 0.8% of their peak-period services, the hybrid missed 14.2%, and the battery electric a whopping 35.7%. The electric buses also have 13 fewer seats than the diesel buses, and half the range at 450km compared to the diesel’s 810km.
ACT Minister for Transport Chris Steel told Crikey the delays were due to not having parts readily available. “As with many emerging technologies, supply chain issues were a significant factor contributing to the limited success for service delivery in peak periods,” he said, adding that buses also missed services while waiting for a diagnosis of technical failures, and waiting for repair.
Breakdowns, Steel said, affected all buses during the trial and breakdowns of electric and hybrid buses were not statistically significant.
Despite more than one in three peak services being missed, the government has stuck to its guns with plans to include electric buses in a new fleet of 84 in the coming years (hybrid buses aren’t likely to be included). Steel says the buses made up for poor performance with low environmental emissions, energy efficiency and whole of life economic costs. He stressed technological developments will mean more reliable buses can be bought in the future.
Still, until the more reliable model hits the streets, Canberrans might want to consider cycling to work instead.
“Still, until the more reliable model hits the streets, Canberrans might want to consider cycling to work instead.”
Ha,ha! That’s how we show “balance” these days, is it?
What is wrong with our mob- are we stupid or incompetent or both?
Belgium runs electric busses without problems- Barcelona local busses all electric- no problems.
We can’t we run electric busses or don’t our mob want them to work?
This story tells you everything you need to know about today’s Australia. We’re just not that smart! We like to think we’re a ‘can do’ country and maybe we were once. Nowadays we barely have a heavy industry base, we still eulogise the advantage of coal, we can’t manage what little water we have, the list goes on.
Even when we’re really, truly going to build a you beaut information super highway, we manage to balls it up! Most of us barely manage to get 50Mbps when the rest of the world (and New Zealand) is galloping towards 1000Mbps. Thank you Mr Abbott.
In the year it took us to experiment with 2 electric buses in Canberra and failing to make them work, China added another 100,000 E buses to their nearly 400,000 fleet. Now that’s a can do nation.
What about the Pacific Highway duplication? It was supposed to be built quickly after the appaling bus accidents near Grafton and Kempsey in 1989. They haven’t finished it yet and are still arguing about the Coffs bypass. What a wank, the Chinese would have built it in two years. I suspect a lot of the public money spent on it has been funneled overseas to tax havens.
I dunno about us being as dumb as you make out..we’re pretty clever at flippin’ houses for a profit & it’s helping to keep the economy going gangbusters, according some esteemed economists..So , how good is that? And hopefully with the new low interest rates , we can flip a hell of a lot more and the growing proletariat rentier class can say, once again “How good is that!”
Yeah, we’re so smart we didn’t see coming what would happen if in this vast land, we didn’t build enough housing for all of us. Prices through the roof.
Yeah great thinking Amber. Two electric buses have intro problems so let’s get rid of the whole idea and do nothing or just wait around until everybody else has everything going 100% hunky dory. Even the cycling crack is dumb – what about the vast majority of buses still going fine ? Too late for a rewrite but how about a rethink and a bit of retraction tomorrow.
There are 4 electric buses based at Leichhardt Depot & they’ve been trialling on the inner west routes since July. In my opinion, they are superior to the diesels being quieter & with no engine vibration. They have the same seat layout as the diesels & I’m always glad when one turns up. I’ve never heard of any problems with them.