South Korea Launches First Electric Bus Fleet

An anonymous reader writes "The Seoul Metropolitan Government just rolled out the world's first commercial all-electric bus service. The buses were designed to be as efficient as possible — each bus can run up to about 52 miles on a single charge and they have a maximum speed of about 62 miles per hour. The vehicles' lithium-ion battery packs can be fully charged in less than 30 minutes and they also feature regenerative braking systems that reuse energy from brakes when running downhill."

Comments

Re:Useless

[MichaelSmith]

52 miles could be a days driving for a bus in Seoul.

Re:How could battery more green than wire?

[h4rr4r]

Because running wires everywhere costs a lot more than putting some batteries on the buses?

I am going to bet those Korean engineers thought about this just a little more than you.

Re:How could battery more green than wire?

[BBTaeKwonDo]

1. You don't have to install cable before starting the service.
2. You don't have to install cable every time you want to want to add a new a bus route. This means the routes can change more frequently, or a destination which might not merit a regular route (sports stadium, e.g.) can get bus service only when needed.
3. No cables means no cable maintenance and no cable theft (theft may not be a problem in Korea, but can be a big problem in some countries).

Cables have their advantages, and a city with cables in place would probably do better to keep them. I would think most places would be better off starting an electric bus system from scratch without cables.