Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

2nd_time_buyer

Interesting points. Seems to stack up well.

I guess, even if it was 24 hours running. You may only need 10-20 percent of the fleet in at any one time for recharging.

ABrass

Grumpy_chap said:

Martyn1981 said:

Another report/result that basically boosts BEV buses.

I can see in many cases, EV would work well for buses. 

The bus is often parked up overnight in the same location so making provision for charging is simple.
The bus takes pretty much the same route / load every day, so knowing the required charging capacity is calculatable and repeatable.
Buses spend a large amount of time idling, which is the worst possible thing for ICE.

Buses that operate 24-hour routes are less easy as the transport operator won't see obvious sense in needing twice as many buses so that the day and night routes can be served.

I suppose bus stations would also need to have diesel generators as back-up power to get the fleet charged overnight in the event of grid power supply failure.  It would be very costly if the whole city had to take a day off work just because of a power black-out meaning the buses were not charged sufficiently to meet the next day's work.

24x7 are easy.

Looking at London the number of busses running overnight is a small fraction of daytime use. Which means busses can be cycled in and out of the route to charge during the lower utilisation time. I'm sure there is one route in the world that runs at constant capacity all day every day, but I have no idea where that would be.

Grumpy_chap

I can imagine that buses also lend themselves relatively well to indictive wireless charging. 

Probably not at the bus depot where buses can easily be plugged in, as I understand "plugged in" is more efficient than wireless charging (happy to be corrected on this).

I was thinking, for the 24-hour routes, could buses charge wirelessly while at the bus stop allowing passenger entry and exit?  Would that give enough power to keep the bus going forever without needing to be taken out of service?
Obviously, a massive infrastructure investment would be required.  Might be lower cost to cycle buses in and out to charge during lower demand periods that naturally cycle through the day.

ABrass said:

I'm sure there is one route in the world that runs at constant capacity all day every day, but I have no idea where that would be.

That's a challenge for someone to find out as the ne'er-sayers need their tomatoes.

Martyn1981

Lots of inductive charging projects already exist around the World for BEV / PHEV buses. I seem to recall TFL trying some out years ago.

There are also pantograph charging BEV buses that use overhead chargers at bus stops and depots.

michaels

Hmm - Sinclair C5 re-imagined?

Podbike to begin delivering its four-wheeled enclosed electric bike-car this year (electrek.co)

Perhaps Sir Clive (RIP) was right all along?

Grumpy_chap

michaels said:

Hmm - Sinclair C5 re-imagined?

Podbike to begin delivering its four-wheeled enclosed electric bike-car this year (electrek.co)

Perhaps Sir Clive (RIP) was right all along?

I think he was certainly ahead of his time.

I always thought the C5 was a great idea

Martyn1981

Pick your clickbait:

1. VWG BEV sales fall further behind Tesla in 2021.
2. VWG BEV sales catching up with Tesla in 2021.

Maths is fun - both are correct, and VWG had a brilliant 2021.
Their BEV sales grew from 232k in 2020 to 453k in 2021.
They were 268k behind Tesla in 2020, falling to 483k behind in 2021.
They equalled 46.4% of Tesla sales in 2020, rising to 48.4% of Tesla sales in 2021.

So the reality is that VWG are doing an excellent job, expanding/ramping BEV's fast, with more production coming on line this year, and perhaps some easing of supply issues. Plus of course they aren't scared to promote BEV's and even tout their benefits over ICEV's. Lovely jubbly.

PS - IMO it's the rising % that dictates the truth / trend line, so clickbait 2 is more correct.

Volkswagen Group Nearly Doubled Global BEV Sales In 2021

Plug-in vehicle sales - Q1-Q4 2021

In 2021, the Volkswagen Group sold a record number of roughly 762,400 plug-in electric vehicles (up 80.6% compared to 422,000 plug-ins in 2020), which is 8.6% (new high) of the total volume (9,305,000; down 4.5%).

The company was able to nearly double the all-electric vehicle sales to a new record of 452,900 and 5.1% of the total volume (compared to 2.5% in 2020). The plug-in hybrid sales expanded by about 61% to nearly 310,000:

• BEVs: about 452,900 (up 95.5% year-over-year) and 5.1% share

• PHEVs: about 309,500 (up 61% year-over-year) and 3.5% share

• Total: about 762,400 (up 81% year-over-year) and 8.6% share

It's a very good result, but of course not as high as planned due to all the production constraints caused by the semiconductor shortages.

EVandPV

French city drops order for 51 hydrogen buses after realising electric ones six times cheaper to run

Julie Frêche, the vice-president of the Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole, who is in charge of transport, told the French business newspaper La Tribune that the operation of the hydrogen buses would cost €3m per year, compared to €500,000 with electric ones — or €0.95 per km versus €0.15.

https://www.rechargenews.com/energy-transition/french-city-drops-order-for-51-hydrogen-buses-after-realising-electric-ones-six-times-cheaper-to-run/2-1-1143717

EVandPV

Very impressed with the Pod Point chargers at Tesco.
Popped in for a few things yesterday and hooked up to a 22kw plug on free vend, tapped the app and the charge started instantly.
The only way I could think to improve it would be to remove the need for the app, but I can live with that considering it's free.
I notice the rapids take contactless payment too.
Excellent charging, this is how it should be !

CKhalvashi

EVandPV said:

Very impressed with the Pod Point chargers at Tesco.
Popped in for a few things yesterday and hooked up to a 22kw plug on free vend, tapped the app and the charge started instantly.
The only way I could think to improve it would be to remove the need for the app, but I can live with that considering it's free.
I notice the rapids take contactless payment too.
Excellent charging, this is how it should be !

Completely agree, I have a folder in my phone called 'car' for this reason, despite 99% of the time charging at home every other night.

More apps isn't helpful, especially when the charging is free IMO.