Electric truck - tow vehicle of future ?

Lessmore wrote:

John & Angela wrote:
There are a lot of North American cities switching to electric only busses. The bean counters must be making sense of it. There would be no political reason to do it. Bus riders don't care how the bus is powered.

I disagree. There is a political reason for having electric powered buses. Many politicians love the perception that they are 'green' if they support electric, non ICE buses. Why...because they see it as a factor that will appeal to a segment of society and give the politico an advantage at election time.

Many passengers also support electric buses for the same reason...they perceive it as 'green' and 'good' for their city and...therefore... by extension them, as citizens. A lot of what we do or think we do is about perception...after all, many of us want to be perceived as good citizenry. "Green' is good in the minds of many. Not all may completely understand why or how, but if a good argument...whether accurate or inaccurate... is made, then that's good enough for many. Unfortunately in this world the facility of independent thought...like common sense...is not all that common.


Some history about electric powered buses.

I worked for a city mass transit years ago, while working my way through U.

Up to about the early '60's many cities in North America had fully electric powered buses. In my city in Western Canada we had electric powered buses that got their electric power to drive the electric motors from a series of overhead wire cables, that connected to the bus via long trolley bars.

Occasionally going too fast around a corner would make the trolley bar...jump...the connection to the overhead electric cable. The bus would come to an immediate halt and the driver would have to get out and position the trolley bars to the overhead cable.

These fully electric buses had tremendous acceleration for such a heavy vehicle, that fully loaded would carry a total between 95-100 people..who would either be sitting or standing. Of course as others have stated an electric motor has maximum torque at zero rpm. That's the reason for the punch.

The electric motor passenger capacity number would equal the passenger capacity of a similar sized ICE powered bus. So no difference in carrying capacity.

Disadvantage....the trolley lines were confined to heavily traveled main streets...on all other streets the buses were ICE powered. Reason was cost. The purchase, installation and maintenance of trolley cable overhead lines was quite expensive.

There was also a maintenance cost involved. Specially designed and equipped service trucks with trained personnel used to repair electric overhead lines and the buses. A cost. ICE buses also have their costs. Both are not maintenance free.

As an aside the service trucks were unusual. They were generally medium duty cab overs (IH, GM,Ford) with high cube boxes. Ladders would be attached to the back of the cube box and there was a fenced work area on top of the high cube box, that service personnel would work from. Back then I did't recall any cherry pickers used.

My city used electric trolley buses because in our province it was an advantage as we have the 'fuel' (electricity) in huge and relatively cheap abundance.

We have many powerful rivers that have huge hydro dams that provide relatively cheap electricity. Have had since the very early 1900's.

So much, so that we sell excess electric power to some states and other provinces. In our case it makes sense to harness electricity, as we generate an awful lot of it at good cost.

Good morning Lessmore. You may be right but I would still be interesting to see the numbers. Edmonton will be replacing their entire fleet with electric over the next few years. They don't strike me as strong environmentalist types. There must be some economic benefit.

We also live in BC. We kinda like the fact that when we charge our two electric vehicles the power is coming from the Revelstoke Dam sixty miles away...and yah it's cheap.

Cheers