(22 Mar 2014, 5:55 pm)G-CPTN wrote Is there a thread directly related to the DesignLine vehicles?
I'm interested in the history (I'm aware of the use by Stagecoach on Quaylink and the subsequent withdrawal and storage and the bankruptcy of the manufacturing company in New Zealand and Charlotte USA) but I don't want to muddy the waters and expand the topic here when it will have been discussed (no doubt at length) elsewhere.
I would also be interested in threads discussing the efficiency/performance/reliability/lifetime cost of hybrids and whether they are as effective as has been mooted.
I'd say that for towns and cities, they're good. For the 308 in mechanical and reliability terms, they're good however, they do struggle on the roundabouts and slip roads when going from a complete stop before engaging 2nd gear. On GNE's 21 however, they can be a bit tempermental particularly between CLS and Durham but they do the job fine. One trial that would be particularly interesting before the X21 and X22 upgrade would be allocating one of the 308 hybrids to the X21 for 1 month. It would be interesting to see how they would perform on a route sitting inbetween a city / suburban category and a mighty rural or trunk road route.