North East Buses
Electric vehicles - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: Electric vehicles (/showthread.php?tid=2623)

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RE: Electric vehicles - F114TML - 06 Feb 2023

(04 Feb 2023, 9:58 pm)nova347 With the Yutongs why is one side of the doors have stripes on it also with the 53/54 ones when I got off on one the other day I almost walked straight into the mirror. It's like almost halfway over the door closest to the windscreen.
The mirrors on our Enviro200s are lethal. I had 3 people walk into one in the space of 2 hours yesterday!


RE: Electric vehicles - ne14ne1 - 09 Mar 2023

There was at least 3x of the shorter Yutongs on the Q3 yesterday as I saw them all at once on Grey & Dean St around 5pm.
Any particular reason for the lack of longer Yutongs, and would that have left the 53/54 short?
Just curious.


RE: Electric vehicles - ALavery - 09 Mar 2023

(09 Mar 2023, 10:55 am)ne14ne1 There was at least 3x of the shorter Yutongs on the Q3 yesterday as I saw them  all at once on Grey & Dean St around 5pm.
Any particular reason for the lack of longer Yutongs, and would that have left the 53/54 short?
Just curious.

Saying that, I did see a Euro 6 versa on the 54 last night.


RE: Electric vehicles - adavies3774 - 12 Mar 2023

(06 Feb 2023, 2:13 pm)F114TML The mirrors on our Enviro200s are lethal. I had 3 people walk into one in the space of 2 hours yesterday!
 I would say its for the heated door glass elements to stop it misting up


RE: Electric vehicles - ne14ne1 - 16 Jan 2024

Video from onboard the Yutong double decker




RE: Electric vehicles - Ambassador - 16 Jan 2024

It might be the angle of the camera or the framing but the aisle looks incredibly narrow

And the indicator…so very loud


RE: Electric vehicles - logidoodah - 16 Jan 2024

(16 Jan 2024, 8:54 pm)ne14ne1 Video from onboard the Yutong double decker


That looks like the same seats as the enviros. I know people have complained about them before but I prefer them. Across all companies' E400s too.


RE: Electric vehicles - mb134 - 19 Jan 2024

Had a ride on the Yutong U11DD demonstrator this evening. Seems in another league in terms of build quality compared to anything ADL or Wright have produced for a number of years. It was a much more pleasant ride than the StreetDeck I caught back to town, or the E400 MMC I caught home.

Obviously the main question about it will be whether it has enough range to handle the 21. It looks to have been allocated to the same board every day it has been out which only goes to Brandon the once, and is only in passenger service for just over 12 hours, which seems pretty easy for a 21 board. While I wonder how it would cope with a longer board such as one of the 4am starts, I'd assume GNE are just be being careful with it and allocating it to a board which it should manage comfortably to avoid any embarrassment, and using remaining range/battery percentage to work out what it might be capable of.


RE: Electric vehicles - BusLoverMum - 19 Jan 2024

It won't have been the best week for testing the range with the freezing weather.


RE: Electric vehicles - Ambassador - 20 Jan 2024

I’m not sure on the technicalities of the bid but it’s difficult to compare electric fleets to traditional fleets but there’s probably nothing stopping GNE running the electrics on the Chester runs which it could easily accommodate vs those longer Brandon and Durham running boards which could run with a more traditional vehicle.


RE: Electric vehicles - Ianthegoon - 20 Jan 2024

(19 Jan 2024, 10:56 pm)BusLoverMum It won't have been the best week for testing the range with the freezing weather.

But at least it will show the limitations on the range, with the vehicle able to achieve better distances in more typical conditions.


RE: Electric vehicles - streetdeckfan - 20 Jan 2024

(19 Jan 2024, 10:56 pm)BusLoverMum It won't have been the best week for testing the range with the freezing weather.

On modern EVs, the hit to efficiency in cold weather is nowhere near as bad as the media make out. 

On our Leaf we've only noticed an 8% decrease in efficiency in the freezing weather in comparison to the warmer weather a few months back (4.1mi/kWh vs 3.8mi/kWh). And that's without pre-heating the car on grid power on most days.

If they're able to pre-heat the buses while still on charge, I'd imagine the hit to efficiency wouldn't be too different.


RE: Electric vehicles - NL62WVW - 20 Jan 2024

It's been getting back to the Depot with around 25 - 30% charge left in it


RE: Electric vehicles - busmanT - 20 Jan 2024

(20 Jan 2024, 12:18 am)Ambassador I’m not sure on the technicalities of the bid but it’s difficult to compare electric fleets to traditional fleets but there’s probably nothing stopping GNE running the electrics on the Chester runs which it could easily accommodate vs those longer Brandon and Durham running boards which could run with a more traditional vehicle.

I’m sure I read that the Levelling Up Fund money towards new EVs for the 21 meant they had to run into Durham.


RE: Electric vehicles - BusLoverMum - 20 Jan 2024

(20 Jan 2024, 6:26 am)streetdeckfan On modern EVs, the hit to efficiency in cold weather is nowhere near as bad as the media make out. 

On our Leaf we've only noticed an 8% decrease in efficiency in the freezing weather in comparison to the warmer weather a few months back (4.1mi/kWh vs 3.8mi/kWh). And that's without pre-heating the car on grid power on most days.

If they're able to pre-heat the buses while still on charge, I'd imagine the hit to efficiency wouldn't be too different.
I think the bigger hit comes at much lower temperatures than we tend to get. We've had a Bz4x for a few weeks and Husband noticed about a 10% drop on Tuesday when it was very cold, particularly at higher speeds on the A19.


RE: Electric vehicles - Unber43 - 20 Jan 2024

Well you would hope that GNE ordered enough to Run the 21 all day every day, but it is GNE so most of the time youll have 15 year old E400s, while no double electric buses are on school routes, or circling east gateshead


RE: Electric vehicles - mb134 - 20 Jan 2024

(20 Jan 2024, 11:57 am)NL62WVW It's been getting back to the Depot with around 25 - 30% charge left in it

Which probably isn't ideal. 

Let's assume it is starting each day leaving the depot with 100%:

- 9.6 miles dead to CLS according to Google. 
- Approx 10 miles between CLS and NCL. It does this 7 times (06:50, 07:40, 08:32, 09:30, 10:24, 11:20, 12:14) before the Brandon trip, for a total of 70 miles. 
- Approx 20 miles from NCL to Brandon, it does this round trip once so that's 40 miles. 
- It then does another CLS round trip (16:32, 17:29), and one last trip down to CLS (18:24), for another 30 miles. 
- Then another 9.6 miles dead back to Riverside. 

That's an approximate 160 miles per day on that board. If we say it does come back nearer to 30% remaining than 25%, that means 160 miles is 70% of its fully charged range. That gives an approximate 230 mile range on a 100% battery.  

If you look at what 6315 did today, it ran dead to CLS to start (9.6 miles). It then did a trip to Durham from CLS (6.7 miles), a trip to Newcastle (17 miles), a Brandon round trip (40 miles), 2x CLS round trips (40 miles), another Brandon round trip (40 miles), a CLS round trip (20 miles), a Durham round trip (34 miles), and a dead run back to Riverside to finish (approx 5 miles). That's a total of 213 miles, and it isn't even a midnight finish or the first bus out of the yard in the morning. You're talking 17 miles to play with, and as those batteries start to degrade that's not an awful lot of wiggle room.

That's even before you consider that the range will take a bigger hit on the higher speed sections of route between CLS and Durham, which it would be required to do more often on most other boards.


RE: Electric vehicles - Ambassador - 20 Jan 2024

I think Newcastle - CLS is longer through then Durham Road route (12 miles possibly)

Doesn’t take into account idle time or traffic (which in the city centre and through Durham Road is horrific at the moment)


RE: Electric vehicles - mb134 - 20 Jan 2024

(20 Jan 2024, 11:24 pm)Ambassador I think Newcastle - CLS is longer through then Durham Road route (12 miles possibly)

Doesn’t take into account idle time or traffic (which in the city centre and through Durham Road is horrific at the moment)

Google reckons taking Durham Road is about 10 miles (10.4, but I couldn't get it spot on through Gateshead). It seems to be slightly less distance than by either the A1 or by the A184 and A194(M). 

In terms of idle time and traffic, no it doesn't, but we do know that the 160 mile board it has been doing (inclusive of all idle time and traffic) is seeing it use around 70% of it's range. You can then extrapolate it out assuming similar idle and traffic.


RE: Electric vehicles - busmanT - 21 Jan 2024

(20 Jan 2024, 11:19 pm)mb134 Which probably isn't ideal. 

Let's assume it is starting each day leaving the depot with 100%:

- 9.6 miles dead to CLS according to Google. 
- Approx 10 miles between CLS and NCL. It does this 7 times (06:50, 07:40, 08:32, 09:30, 10:24, 11:20, 12:14) before the Brandon trip, for a total of 70 miles. 
- Approx 20 miles from NCL to Brandon, it does this round trip once so that's 40 miles. 
- It then does another CLS round trip (16:32, 17:29), and one last trip down to CLS (18:24), for another 30 miles. 
- Then another 9.6 miles dead back to Riverside. 

That's an approximate 160 miles per day on that board. If we say it does come back nearer to 30% remaining than 25%, that means 160 miles is 70% of its fully charged range. That gives an approximate 230 mile range on a 100% battery.  

If you look at what 6315 did today, it ran dead to CLS to start (9.6 miles). It then did a trip to Durham from CLS (6.7 miles), a trip to Newcastle (17 miles), a Brandon round trip (40 miles), 2x CLS round trips (40 miles), another Brandon round trip (40 miles), a CLS round trip (20 miles), a Durham round trip (34 miles), and a dead run back to Riverside to finish (approx 5 miles). That's a total of 213 miles, and it isn't even a midnight finish or the first bus out of the yard in the morning. You're talking 17 miles to play with, and as those batteries start to degrade that's not an awful lot of wiggle room.

That's even before you consider that the range will take a bigger hit on the higher speed sections of route between CLS and Durham, which it would be required to do more often on most other boards.

Don’t bus companies only run the batteries down each day until they have 20% left?

(20 Jan 2024, 9:31 pm)Unber43 Well you would hope that GNE ordered enough to Run the 21 all day every day, but it is GNE so most of the time youll have 15 year old E400s, while no double electric buses are on school routes, or circling east gateshead

I don’t think an EV double deck exists that can run from first bus in the morning until last bus at night - they don’t in London or Manchester. 
150/170 miles is about the maximum without a middle of the day top up.