Electric Bus Sets Record With 1,101-Mile Trip On a Single Charge (engadget.com)

A startup called Proterra has set the world record for the furthest distance any electric vehicle has managed before recharging. The Catalyst E2 Max electric bus drove 1,101.2 miles on a single charge, beating the previous record-holder, a one-seat experimental car nicknamed "Boozer." Engadget reports: Not surprisingly, a bus can hold a much larger battery than just about any regular car. The Catalyst E2 Max carries 660kWh, or nearly nine times the capacity of a 75kWh Tesla Model S. Also, Proterra was driving in optimal conditions, with no passengers, no stops and a gentle test track. It'd be another story with a fully-laden bus wending its way through a city. Even so, that kind of range is very promising. In many cases, it could likely handle a long bus route for several hours -- it might only need to recharge at the end of a driver's shift. While it could take an hour or more to top up even with Proterra's fast charging system, bus drivers are no strangers to changing vehicles. The first E2 series buses are due to reach Los Angeles streets later in 2017, so it might not be long before you can witness this longevity first-hand. The company released a video of the record-setting feat on YouTube.

Comments

It seems really impressive until

[DesertNomad]

you realize it's in binary

Re:Public Buses are different

[PopeRatzo]

Sure, cities will have no problem buying enough busses to have two charging for every one on the road. Why don't people think things through?

There was a time when practically every big city in the US had an all-electric public transportation system. And it was profitable. It was killed off by a conspiracy involving Rockefeller, Standard Oil and General Motors. They were even convicted of the conspiracy in court.

http://americanhistory.oxfordr...

https://www.theguardian.com/ci...

idling and braking

[Jodka]

Electric buses are not particularly better than diesels on non-stop trips but have a great advantage in stop-and-go driving, so the summary is kind of odd how it plays those advantages up and down the other way around. I guess the point is that electrics are catching up on range now also.

With conventional busses, every stop to pick up or drop off passengers means more brake wear. Brakes are ablative and a big maintenance expense. Also, the bus is always idling and consuming fuel whether it is moving or not in stop-and-go traffic. In comparison, Electric buses use regenerative breaking and do not idle, advantages over diesels which increase with more frequent stops to pickup/drop off passengers and at intersections in the city. Neither of those special advantages come into play in one long, straight, uninterrupted drive; it's the comparison which shows the diesel bus at its relative best.

So busses are a special case which make electrics especially advantageous. In fact, projections are that for shuttle busses at airports, which drive short cyclical routes, even super capacitors would be practical; Because the route is a short cycle, even with a low charge capacity, the bus passes the charger before the capacitor depletes. Charging is almost instant and can occur when the vehicle is otherwise stopped at the terminal to drop off/pickup passengers, adding no additional delay. Also, the number of charger cycles of a super capacitor is much higher than a lithium battery.

Re:Srsly, buses are the worst...

[serviscope_minor]

Honestly, this infatuation with buses has me a bit baffled.

Perhaps it's from people who live in cities with functioning bus systems. I do. The city in question is called "london". I don't know if you call 6.5 million journeys per day infatuation, but I call that "working".

Sure, they do a great job of moving lots of people from point A to point B, but everyone seems to forget to take the actual consumer participation factor out of account.

Well, the nominal population of London is 8.7 million, so the bus system averages a little under one journey per person per day. Which is pretty good.

anecdote about your city to match my anecdote

Perhaps your city sucks at public transport. Maybe you don't have a well integrated transport system. Maybe you have too few busses, or not enough priority given to them. Perhaps they're too expensive, too infrequent or too unreliable. However the fact that London has a working system is an existence proof that shows a working system is perfectly possible. London is not unique in this regard either.

The problem is not with busses, the problem is with your city. I for one welcome electric busses because they don't spew wretched diesel fumes all over the place.