[Speculation] Commercially Purchased Electric Buses

[tbtc]

The UK bus industry is slowly embracing electric buses.

Some of that reluctance is perhaps understandable from operators who invested in “hybrid” vehicles a decade ago only to find that the technology wasn’t reliable enough for the hammering that buses get in daily service and had to spend money to convert them to “pure diesel” - with new vehicles costing hundreds of thousands of pounds, who wants to be stuck with the bus equivalent of Beetamax?

But a lot of the reluctance is no doubt due to the costs involved. The charging points at depots, the charging points at termini/ bus stations… (and amending timetables to take charging into account) It’s not a decision to take lightly

The government obviously have been helping, the DfT have set up ZEBRA (Zero Emissions Bus Regional Areas) to help fund things, no doubt there’s been local support in some areas too

But have any electric vehicles been purchased commercially yet (without any government subsidy)? And, if not, how long do you reckon until the economics/ reliability is so good that operators will get the chequebook out without needing the part-funding from Central/ Local government?

 

[Man of Kent]

The UK bus industry is slowly embracing electric buses.

Some of that reluctance is perhaps understandable from operators who invested in “hybrid” vehicles a decade ago only to find that the technology wasn’t reliable enough for the hammering that buses get in daily service and had to spend money to convert them to “pure diesel” - with new vehicles costing hundreds of thousands of pounds, who wants to be stuck with the bus equivalent of Beetamax?

But a lot of the reluctance is no doubt due to the costs involved. The charging points at depots, the charging points at termini/ bus stations… (and amending timetables to take charging into account) It’s not a decision to take lightly

The government obviously have been helping, the DfT have set up ZEBRA (Zero Emissions Bus Regional Areas) to help fund things, no doubt there’s been local support in some areas too

But have any electric vehicles been purchased commercially yet (without any government subsidy)? And, if not, how long do you reckon until the economics/ reliability is so good that operators will get the chequebook out without needing the part-funding from Central/ Local government?

It's a little unclear how the four BYD/ADL operated by Mullanys of Watford on the Harry Potter shuttle have been funded. The buses are said to be owned by National Express, but as far as I know, the NX buses are leased from "batttery supplier" Zenobe, so it seems possible that Mullanys have a relationship with Zenobe too. Elsewhere I have read that Zenobe has more buses than the NX contract requires, presumably because the penalties for not supplying a bus are high enough to encourage this.

While the price of an indivdual bus remains difficult to pin down, statements such as "an investment of £x million in y no. of buses" usually still results in a unit price of pushing on £0.5m for double deckers (so broadly double the price of a diesel) although sometimes these figures are clouded by the cost of power supplies being included as well as the vehicles. The title of a West Midlands Combined Authority press release from earlier this year https://www.wmca.org.uk/news/300-ne...st-midlands-following-150-million-investment/ is spot on the £0.5m mark.

 

[Volvodart]

The Enviro200EV that are or were used on Sky shuttles below would not have attracted funding I would have thought.

Sky staff and visitor shuttle fleet gains battery-electrics - routeone

Telemcommunications firm Sky had seen the first battery-electric buses enter service on its staff and visitor shuttle service.

www.route-one.net

 

[NIT100]

The UK bus industry is slowly embracing electric buses.

Some of that reluctance is perhaps understandable from operators who invested in “hybrid” vehicles a decade ago only to find that the technology wasn’t reliable enough for the hammering that buses get in daily service and had to spend money to convert them to “pure diesel” - with new vehicles costing hundreds of thousands of pounds, who wants to be stuck with the bus equivalent of Beetamax?

But a lot of the reluctance is no doubt due to the costs involved. The charging points at depots, the charging points at termini/ bus stations… (and amending timetables to take charging into account) It’s not a decision to take lightly

The government obviously have been helping, the DfT have set up ZEBRA (Zero Emissions Bus Regional Areas) to help fund things, no doubt there’s been local support in some areas too

But have any electric vehicles been purchased commercially yet (without any government subsidy)? And, if not, how long do you reckon until the economics/ reliability is so good that operators will get the chequebook out without needing the part-funding from Central/ Local government?

I believe the first Ember coach was funded without any government subsidy, with a loan through the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) for the second. Not a direct EV subsidy but a form of government subsidy. But they have then had funding through SZEB for a lot more, can't remember how many exactly

 

[aswilliamsuk]

The UK bus industry is slowly embracing electric buses.

Some of that reluctance is perhaps understandable from operators who invested in “hybrid” vehicles a decade ago only to find that the technology wasn’t reliable enough for the hammering that buses get in daily service and had to spend money to convert them to “pure diesel” - with new vehicles costing hundreds of thousands of pounds, who wants to be stuck with the bus equivalent of Beetamax?

But a lot of the reluctance is no doubt due to the costs involved. The charging points at depots, the charging points at termini/ bus stations… (and amending timetables to take charging into account) It’s not a decision to take lightly

The government obviously have been helping, the DfT have set up ZEBRA (Zero Emissions Bus Regional Areas) to help fund things, no doubt there’s been local support in some areas too

But have any electric vehicles been purchased commercially yet (without any government subsidy)? And, if not, how long do you reckon until the economics/ reliability is so good that operators will get the chequebook out without needing the part-funding from Central/ Local government?

The recent order by National Express West Midlands for 300 electric 'deckers is entirely commercial (the previous order for 130, later increased to 300 - the initial 130 at least part-funded by the Coventry Electric Bus City award, and the 124 hydrogen or electric vehicles from ZEBRA funding awards - were all part-funded to my knowledge).

 

[Dai Corner]

Newport Transport's first batch of Yutongs and associated charging infrastructure was financed by the UK Government but I believe their latest ones are leased commercially.

 

[Jordan Adam]

It's a little unclear how the four BYD/ADL operated by Mullanys of Watford on the Harry Potter shuttle have been funded. The buses are said to be owned by National Express, but as far as I know, the NX buses are leased from "batttery supplier" Zenobe, so it seems possible that Mullanys have a relationship with Zenobe too. Elsewhere I have read that Zenobe has more buses than the NX contract requires, presumably because the penalties for not supplying a bus are high enough to encourage this.

I'm not sure of the exact example you mention however many of the larger operators now are selling the batteries on their EV buses to a supplier such as Zenobe or Hitachi and then leasing them back as a service on a subscription style basis. This means that if/once the batteries degrade and need replaced the operator doesn't need to foot the costs as it's already covered as part of the service package. There are other aspects to the service package too such as telematics and smart charging meaning the batteries are kept at their peak state of performance.

 

[E-Rail]

I would think the first operator to introduce non-subsided EVs would be likely be Tootbus which would probably be for London first as I believe there is an issue with certain streets in Bath not being able to support the weight of electric deckers due to cellars below them. If not Tootbus then probably Big Bus in London. These are the only operators that I can see would be able to make the numbers add up for a commercial EV fleet purchase. These tour operators may also reap additional green custom through such a fleet which could go some way to rewarding their investment in a way that simply won't happen with standard 'distress purchase' bus travel.

 

[K4016td]

Well I think we may have a London and outside London approach, like with the regular buses.

In London the number of buses and the fact that there are busy interchanges justifies investment by the TfL who is responsible for all other infrastructure in chargers en-route, as this requires not only huge costs but also tons of paperwork, planning permissions and all sort of other things that may not be viable to do by contracted operators themselves. They may of course have chargers in the garages, but will the overnight charge last throughout the day?

Outside London, where buses are run comercially investment in such vehicles and infrastructure may not be always justified in my opinion, at least with the current costs of vehicles, power and required infrastructure. Question is - who will provide chargers on terminuses, who will select their type and how to access the power if there are many different operators in the town with all sort of different buses, there are frequent changes with routes being limited or cut althogheter if patronage drops?

 

[MotCO]

Some of the York Park & Ride services are provided by Metrodecker EVs - were they publically or privately funded by First?

 

[Eyersey468]

Some of the York Park & Ride services are provided by Metrodecker EVs - were they publically or privately funded by First?

I was under the impression there was some public funding for them but could well be wrong

 

[RustySpoons]

I think it'd be brave of any operator to purchase an electric vehicle outright. Am I right in saying Optare is now all-electric? There's a lot of smaller operators who've bought Solos new and ran them into the ground over 15-20 years. I can't see the same happening with electrics.

Although when it comes to leasing the costs may work in the favour of electric over diesel, especially if it can be returned off lease before it needs big money spending on it replacing battery packs.

 

[Dai Corner]

I'm not sure of the exact example you mention however many of the larger operators now are selling the batteries on their EV buses to a supplier such as Zenobe or Hitachi and then leasing them back as a service on a subscription style basis. This means that if/once the batteries degrade and need replaced the operator doesn't need to foot the costs as it's already covered as part of the service package. There are other aspects to the service package too such as telematics and smart charging meaning the batteries are kept at their peak state of performance.

I believe Newport Transport have this kind of arrangement. Once the batteries have deteriorated too much to use in buses they're going to put them in the depot to store solar power and cheap mains power.


Let's hope the leasing companies don't go bust and leave the operators high and dry.

 

[ANDREW_D_WEBB]

It's a little unclear how the four BYD/ADL operated by Mullanys of Watford on the Harry Potter shuttle have been funded. The buses are said to be owned by National Express, but as far as I know, the NX buses are leased from "batttery supplier" Zenobe, so it seems possible that Mullanys have a relationship with Zenobe too. Elsewhere I have read that Zenobe has more buses than the NX contract requires, presumably because the penalties for not supplying a bus are high enough to encourage this.

While the price of an indivdual bus remains difficult to pin down, statements such as "an investment of £x million in y no. of buses" usually still results in a unit price of pushing on £0.5m for double deckers (so broadly double the price of a diesel) although sometimes these figures are clouded by the cost of power supplies being included as well as the vehicles. The title of a West Midlands Combined Authority press release from earlier this year https://www.wmca.org.uk/news/300-ne...st-midlands-following-150-million-investment/ is spot on the £0.5m mark.

As I understand it the Harry Potter contract was awarded to National Express who subsequently sourced vehicles for it and sub contracted the day to day operations to Mullanys.

 

[ChrisPJ]

At current prices it’s difficult to see how it stacks up, yeah there’s maintenance savings and energy might be cheaper in the long run too but surely the whole life costs are wrecked by the likelihood that a big spend on fresh batteries around the seven year mark is needed.

Then again I never understood the business case for the First ftr, I thought those things needed a very long lifespan to achieve payback but they were dead within a decade. Someone had to do a lot of explaining to the accountants for that investment to be written off.

 

[GusB]

I think it'd be brave of any operator to purchase an electric vehicle outright. Am I right in saying Optare is now all-electric? There's a lot of smaller operators who've bought Solos new and ran them into the ground over 15-20 years. I can't see the same happening with electrics.

Although when it comes to leasing the costs may work in the favour of electric over diesel, especially if it can be returned off lease before it needs big money spending on it replacing battery packs.

In theory, there's no reason why an operator can't get the same lifespan from an electric vehicle than from its diesel equivalent. In terms of the actual driveline, an electric vehicle has far fewer moving parts, so ongoing maintenance costs should be reduced. Of course, the other big spend is the charging infrastructure but this should be a one-off cost.

The biggest issue is that batteries degrade over time and will eventually need replacing at some point. Battery technology is evolving fast and even when they're done in terms of road use, they can still be used for other applications. How easy this is to do will depend on how easy a manufacturer makes it to swap out the batteries at the end of their useful road lives.

I think "batteries as a service" has some merit to it. The cost of replacing and/or upgrading to a new technology will be borne by whoever supplies the batteries and it will just become regular operating expenditure.

The video below is an episode of the Fully Charged Show and may be of interest to some. Yes, I know it's about trucks and not about buses, but there's no reason why the principles can't be applied to buses. To summarise, a company in Australia has re-powered diesel trucks with an electric driveline. Batteries are installed in rafts that can be removed within a few minutes and replaced, when the battery needs to be recharged, so there's no charging time involved (obviously there is, but the vehicle is back on the road and earning money again while this happens).

There are a few bus re-powering options springing up now, including conversions from diesel, so it'll be interesting to see how things evolve in the next few years.

 

[Snow1964]

At the moment, probably not any reason to fully fund commercially whilst Government grants are still around. For most operators any new buses lead to a cascade to lesser routes, with oldest buses ultimately getting replaced (not always one new equals one disposal)

The most recent document I can find suggests of the intended 4000 zero emission buses, funding for only 1779 have been allocated so far

The Government announced a £525m budget for assisting operators with upfront costs of buying zero-emission buses (ZEBs) and refuelling/recharging infrastructure. It also committed to getting 4,000 ZEBs in operation by 2024. As of December 2022, funding had been allocated for 1,779 ZEBs, 447 orders have been placed, and only 87 ZEBs were on the road.

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/153/transport-committee/news/194531/greater-support-needed-to-realise-ambitions-of-the-national-bus-strategy-transport-committee-tells-government/