Did they decide to end the use of part time hard shoulder running?How long have smart motorways taken?
if not that is an issue for which lane you electrify……
Did they decide to end the use of part time hard shoulder running?How long have smart motorways taken?
Did they decide to end the use of part time hard shoulder running?
if not that is an issue for which lane you electrify……
Why not rails......?????!
Wonder if this will lead to increased demand for charter rail operators if 'go anywhere' coaches are not as practical for some journeys.
How long will it be before everywhere is within range of the long distance network and spot hire companies have bought electric vehicles?Oh great, rather than a green coach powered by renewable electric, recharging en-route, and battery for the last 20 miles, we get a 50 year old diesel locomotive belching tons of smoke and co2 with a very limited number of destinations it can travel to.
How long will it be before everywhere is within range of the long distance network and spot hire companies have bought electric vehicles?
A great post. It is often assumed that rail will always be greener. Stats like this show how much work is needed to keep rail ahead.Electric coaches (complete with air con) with a 200 mile range and a 2 hour recharge are already available.
https://pelicanyutong.co.uk/coaches/tce12-electric-coach/
Coaches aren't exactly parked anywhere, they tend to go somewhere for the day then stay there. Relatively trivial to provide electricity to areas coaches can park - compared with keeping personal cars (that are garaged on public roads) charged.
The average age of the 141,000 buses and coaches in UK is 11.2 years, with 66% less than 13 years old, so it won't take anywhere near as long to convert the majority of the UK's coach fleet once the "go" button is pressed. If new diesel coaches were banned today, or made a lot more expensive than new electric coaches, the majority of them would be electric by the time HS2 reaches Crewe.
The local coach firm is running a day out in a few days - only 45 miles to Bakewell. They pick up passengers at a variety of places throughout the town and villages rather than making the (mostly elderly) make their own way several miles to the station. A train excusion, unless it's specifically for the purpose of going to go on a train, is not going to be picking up people in Shavington, nor delivering them to Bakewell -- even if the Buxton-Bakewell line was still open it would take at least 2 hours to go Crewe to Bakewell, assuming paths were available, rather than 1h20 on the coach.
No need for a recharge.
The 70 mile trip to Llandudno likewise is there and back on a single charge.
The 112 mile trip to Grange over Sands would require a recharge at the destination, but I assume the trip is for more than the two hours needed for a full recharge, so it's just a matter of booking in the coach at a charging point at the coach parking at the destination. 200 miles is 4 hours, you're going to have at least one stop on the way. The Scotish excursion after pickups is first stop Tebay, 116 miles. Assuming that's a 45 minute stop, that puts the range back up to 160 miles (at 100 miles per hour). The next stop is Auchentochan distillery with plenty of time for a full charge.
Range and charging time isn't going to decrease over time, and prices aren't going to go up. It seems that electric coaches for the vast majority of excursions from my town are doable with today's technology - even without overhead recharging.
And that's why I think the overhead charging won't work - by the time it's actually rolled out, battery technology will make it unnecessary.
200 miles range and 2 hour refueling times. I'd love to see you complete the M11 London to Glasgow on that.Electric coaches (complete with air con) with a 200 mile range and a 2 hour recharge are already available.
Great idea, except for the fact that it's incredibly flammable and needs a pressurised distribution system that wouldn't be able to just take over petrol stations.I have a brilliant idea. Instead of putting a load of tram lines above the motorways, we, idk, put a little device called a fuel cell in the space where the ICE usually goes. Then to power the fuel cell, we put tanks capable of taking a gas that goes really well wit fuel cells. How about hydrogen? And then, we can fuel it like a regular car, truck or bus, in 5 minutes and not 30.
Especially as the M11 goes to Cambridge.200 miles range and 2 hour refueling times. I'd love to see you complete the M11 London to Glasgow on that.
Although if you join the M11 northbound and just keep going you'll end up in Glasgow via the A14, M6, M6 Toll, M6 and M74. Bit of a roundabout way to do it thoughEspecially as the M11 goes to Cambridge.
The joys of not knowing the context of something - one of the common causes of most arguments.Isn’t the M11 being referred to the Megabus route London - Glasgow?
200 miles range and 2 hour refueling times. I'd love to see you complete the M11 London to Glasgow on that.
Ever heard about thermal runaway? Also look at the F1 marshals before and after the 2014 engine regulations came into effect and notice what item of clothing they received as a result. Battery electric vehicles are also not infallible.Great idea, except for the fact that it's incredibly flammable and needs a pressurised distribution system that wouldn't be able to just take over petrol stations.
We are reaching the limit of what batteries can do and take without going into thermal runaway. We are also having to dig finite resources out of the ground to make batteries, so we just wind up with a supposedly more environmentally friendly fossil fuel problem of it'll run out one day. The next problem is, when we all switch to electric vehicles, how will the national grid cope?200 miles at the moment. With technology that currently exists. For a tiny minority of coaches.
What about tour operators who go all the way to say Amsterdam? So they have to stop for 2 hours every 200 miles. I'd love to be a passenger on that...Long distance coach drivers presumably have to stop for a rest every 200 miles don't they? Doesn't make sense to me to have such journeys anyway, rail is a far better solution to move people that distance.
There's a single motorway to get from London to Glasgow!? News to me mate. (Thanks for your excellent numbering system Stagecoach!)Especially as the M11 goes to Cambridge.
What about tour operators who go all the way to say Amsterdam?
London - Amsterdam is only a 300 mile drive if you do Eurotunnel, rather less of you do Harwich - Hook...
Which would still require a recharge. Worse still is somewhere further afield such as Manchester or Cardiff. Plus I'm talking about tour companies, not direct coach routes.London - Amsterdam is only a 300 mile drive if you do Eurotunnel, rather less of you do Harwich - Hook...
So Eurotunnel have to take power from the trains that could be used for other more useful functions to charge your vehicle?Not to mention recharging opportunities in the tunnel
So companies must now have double the fleet? Oh they're going to love that...if you're not doing the tunnel then your passengers will be getting off your coach, so why not swap the coach out?
Oh no. There's a reason these are still CGI renderings and don't exist in real life - it's almost impossible to do. You have to have those robotic arms to remove the batteries, lifts capable of taking the weight (both of which have to be made suitable for outdoor use), a way of protecting the batteries, somewhere to store the batteries and a system to ensure you aren't given dud batteries. Then once that is all done, you have to make sure they're properly connected and disconnected, lest you electrify your whole car.For long distance coaches, swapping out batteries would be far more feasible building some sort of hydrogen districution network for a tiny number of journeys required.
I have a brilliant idea. Instead of putting a load of tram lines above the motorways, we, idk, put a little device called a fuel cell in the space where the ICE usually goes. Then to power the fuel cell, we put tanks capable of taking a gas that goes really well wit fuel cells. How about hydrogen? And then, we can fuel it like a regular car, truck or bus, in 5 minutes and not 30.
At a guess, there will probably need to be gaps in the OLE above slip roads anyway, so it would presumably be possible to use the outside lanes for an extraordinary load. As others have mentioned, chances are the OLE would be pretty close to overbridge height though, so perhaps not too much of an impact
A great post. It is often assumed that rail will always be greener. Stats like this show how much work is needed to keep rail ahead.
If we maintain the current heights for the wires then every high vehicle will have to use lane 2. Which would be interesting on those roads where there's only two lanes in each direction.
Probably not as much your post suggests, for rail passengers rail is already comparable to EV's (per person per km) even though there's a lot of diesel trains still in use.
Why couldn't the wires be 7m above? They don't need to run under bridges as the power is used to recharge.
You're comparing a single oocupancy electric car with a heavilly crammed rail service in general. Compare it to the hourly 3 car diesel that passes me with half a dozen passengers on a busy day
tce12 has 1.4kwh/mile for 50 passengers, so 28 Wh per mile per person.
A Tesla is 34kWh/100 miles, or 340Wh/mile. With 1.4 passengers that's 240Wh per mile per person.
A leaf is about 24kWh/100 miles, so 170Wh/mile per person.
So if the UK rail network as a whole is in the 200Wh/passenger mile range, it needs to get a lot better to reach 28Wh/passenger mile.
The Toyota Mirai sticks its biggest tank where the gearbox would normally go in the transmission tunnel, meaning that BEV platforms don't have to be developed alongside ICE platforms at double the expense of just having 1 platform. On buses and coaches, they do/will wind up taking up interior space, but so do CNG and BEV buses, so nothing new there.They also have some rather poor system power densities (J/m3) when you factor in the surprisingly big & heavy tanks necessary for containing hydrogen at the sort of ridiculously high pressures needed. If you're limiting yourself to the same area as the ICE (and fuel tank) then you'll have a rather compromised vehicle
I mean, the ship transporting all those minerals around the world to be turned into batteries is running on what is essentially filtered crude oil, but you won't see Elon or his tech bro fanboys mentioning that. Speaking of a fuel source that could replace the crude oil...Fuel cells are just a zero-emission (at tailpipe) range extender, rather than a full-on independent motive power source