BurbMan wrote:
Very cool, but what's the use case? 311 mile range then 5 hr recharge time needed, so obviously not for long haul routes. What happens to the range when you do a lot of start/stop like city driving? Would it go a whole day on a city route? I wonder what the purchase cost is vs. diesel?
I would love to see these in crowded areas like airports and downtowns.
This is a motor coach geared towards tour companies (think student groups going to Disney World or old folks on a fall color tour). It's not a city transit bus. So city stop & go driving isn't very critical (though assuming regenerative braking, it should actually be great at stop & go)
I agree a use case is critical. 311 mile range means a round trip peaks at around 150miles. I would be interested to know is that 311 mile range based on 70mph cruising on the freeway? Typically, higher speeds result in shorter range for EVs.
I could see a tour bus company keeping a small number for shorter routes but not really practical for say a St. Louis to Washington highschool trip. Also a 70mph top speed will be an issue for many companies...sure it's illegal but been passed many times by buses doing 80mph...and where do they charge once at the destination?
Also, it's not just the cost of the bus but how much will a 125kw charging station cost to install at the home terminal? That's about 1050amp @ 120v supply for each bus. Now imagine a small operation with 10 buses and you are looking at 10,500amp service (obviously, they might go to a higher voltage to cut amperage in practice) but that's a very expensive upgrade....as in tens of thousands of dollars. Even if you assume slower charging, it's still wildly expensive to install chargers.
Maybe a modified version used for city tours (think the grayline tours in major cities). They generally don't go a lot of miles and at slow speeds, wind resistance is down. Then the bus goes to a home yard for the night.
Looping back to RVs...once it's in production, it's equivalent to a high end diesel pusher chasie. 300mile range in a day will serve a lot of RV buyers. The issue is charging. A 30amp is pretty much a non-starter with house loads eating up most of the available power. A 50amp can put out around 9kw continuous (12kw is short term peak load). Assuming house loads average 2kw, that leaves 7kw for charging. To fill a 676kwh battery bank is going to make overnight stops doable but campground owners may not be happy about it. At $0.20/kwh, that's $135 in electricity. On a $50/n sites, that's not a winning economic opportunity.
It would be really nice to hear what the price is. If it's pretty close to a DP chasie, it could be a winner but if it's a $50-100k upgrade, it might work for a commercial operation where the bus is on the road 8-10hr per day every day but much harder to justify for a MH that sits 9 out of 10 days.
