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Hydrogen vs. Battery Buses: A European Transit Reality Check

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Re: Hydrogen vs. Battery Buses: A European Transit Reality Check

#61

Post by spacebanana7 »

mmooss wrote: post #56
rsynnott wrote: post #4

I think battery buses have comprehensively won this one, to be honest. The biggest hydrogen bus fleet seems to be 35 vehicles; there are many BEV bus fleets in the hundreds and some in the thousands. As a certified old person, I'm having trouble getting used to them. It is unnatural for a double-decker bus to pull up near-silently, and then move off smoothly when you get on. They are _supposed_ to vibrate violently a…

> The biggest hydrogen bus fleet seems to be 35 vehicles From the OP: Cologne is one of the few relatively good news stories for hydrogen bus fleets. Regionalverkehr Köln (RVK) has become the largest operator of hydrogen fuel cell buses in Europe, with a fleet that reached 101 vehicles by late 2024 and is expected to grow to 160 by the end of 2025.

Still, their point was directionally correct. London has 1397 electric buses and Moscow has over 2300.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_emission_buses_in_London

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_buses_in_Moscow

Re: Hydrogen vs. Battery Buses: A European Transit Reality Check

#62

Post by kalleboo »

hakfoo wrote: post #51
m463 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if diesel electric locomotives are efficient at all. I think the electric is for infinite torque to get lots and lots of cars moving. But to slow down, "electric" brakes are to bleed off power into resistor banks, not re-capture the electricity. Meanwhile an electric bus actually has to be efficient, which means batteries and regenerative braking.

As I understand it, straight electric locomotives would use the 'dynamic' braking to send current back up the wires. Apparently this would make for entertaining economics-- a section of the rail network where most of the tonnage went downhill could produce a net negative power bill. With diesel-electrics, there was nowhere to the braking power, so resistor grids were the order of the day. I wonder if it would be poss…

An example of such a line is in Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ore_Line

> From Riksgränsen on the national border to the Port of Narvik, the trains use only a fifth of the power they regenerate. The regenerated energy is sufficient to power the empty trains back up to the national border.

Re: Hydrogen vs. Battery Buses: A European Transit Reality Check

#64

Post by Angostura »

api wrote: post #13
rsynnott wrote: post #4

I think battery buses have comprehensively won this one, to be honest. The biggest hydrogen bus fleet seems to be 35 vehicles; there are many BEV bus fleets in the hundreds and some in the thousands. As a certified old person, I'm having trouble getting used to them. It is unnatural for a double-decker bus to pull up near-silently, and then move off smoothly when you get on. They are _supposed_ to vibrate violently a…

Where I live in the US my kids still take “cheese buses” to school that haven’t changed a bit. They’re diesel and you can hear them blocks away. When they pull up with their air brakes going off and their diesel shifting to idle it sounds like one of those spice miner things from Dune going to work. If they ever go electric I’m not sure how we’ll know it’s time to take the kids out. Won’t be able to hear them coming.

They’ll simply use ice-cream van style chimes :)

Re: Hydrogen vs. Battery Buses: A European Transit Reality Check

#65

Post by rstuart4133 »

kalleboo wrote: post #62
hakfoo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, straight electric locomotives would use the 'dynamic' braking to send current back up the wires. Apparently this would make for entertaining economics-- a section of the rail network where most of the tonnage went downhill could produce a net negative power bill. With diesel-electrics, there was nowhere to the braking power, so resistor grids were the order of the day. I wonder if it would be poss…

An example of such a line is in Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ore_Line > From Riksgränsen on the national border to the Port of Narvik, the trains use only a fifth of the power they regenerate. The regenerated energy is sufficient to power the empty trains back up to the national border.

Similar thing happens in Australia: https://www.jalopnik.com/these-electric-trains-never-need-re...

The twist: these trains aren't connected to the grid. They use regenerative braking to charge batteries when carting ore to the coast, and the batteries power the trip back to the mine.

Re: Hydrogen vs. Battery Buses: A European Transit Reality Check

#66

Post by rsynnott »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #40
rsynnott wrote: post #4

I think battery buses have comprehensively won this one, to be honest. The biggest hydrogen bus fleet seems to be 35 vehicles; there are many BEV bus fleets in the hundreds and some in the thousands. As a certified old person, I'm having trouble getting used to them. It is unnatural for a double-decker bus to pull up near-silently, and then move off smoothly when you get on. They are _supposed_ to vibrate violently a…

I'm surprised hybrids are so under-represented in this considerations. Maybe I'm missing something but I would think at the scale of a bus, a hybrid is even more appealing than at the scale of a sedan. Even locomotives and one or two earthmoving off-highway trucks have electric transmissions, making them series hybrids (With very small batteries not used for traction)

I mean, hybrid buses are common. Dublin Bus’s fleet is about 900 conventional diesel, 300 plug-in hybrid, a trivial number of light hybrid (they never committed to these), and 150 electric. But hybrid buses also don’t seem to have a future (at least as urban buses); at least here the plan is to buy no more diesel or hybrid buses; the current fleet will age out.

Re: Hydrogen vs. Battery Buses: A European Transit Reality Check

#67

Post by jillesvangurp »

occz wrote: post #20

Electric buses in the form of trolleybuses seems like the better option than either of these, although I do agree that battery buses beat hydrogen every day of the week.

Batteries are cheap. Installing lots of copper lines for trolley buses isn't. That's why trolley buses are pretty rare. Old idea, didn't really take that well. There are a handful of cities that have them. And they've had them for decades. Most of those cities now also have battery electrical buses to service all the areas where the cables don't go. Expanding the network of cables doesn't seem to have a very high priority. Installing chargers (in depots mostly) is much easier and cheaper. And it's not like batteries are that expensive.

With battery prices trending to 50$ per kwh, a decent size bus battery of 250kwh would cost about 12.5K. That's manufacturing cost, not purchase cost. But it drives the point home: long term batteries are going to dip even further. Far below 50$/kwh. It will drive down the cost of battery electric drive trains for everything with wheels to far below that of the traditional setup with ICE engines. And they don't need expensive fuel to run. Or a lot of engine maintenance and servicing.

Currently tens of thousands of electrical buses are produced per year. Most of them in China. Which is of course where they have lots of battery factories. It's a rapidly growing industry.

Re: Hydrogen vs. Battery Buses: A European Transit Reality Check

#68

Post by rsynnott »

m463 wrote: post #49
01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised hybrids are so under-represented in this considerations. Maybe I'm missing something but I would think at the scale of a bus, a hybrid is even more appealing than at the scale of a sedan. Even locomotives and one or two earthmoving off-highway trucks have electric transmissions, making them series hybrids (With very small batteries not used for traction)

I wonder if diesel electric locomotives are efficient at all. I think the electric is for infinite torque to get lots and lots of cars moving. But to slow down, "electric" brakes are to bleed off power into resistor banks, not re-capture the electricity. Meanwhile an electric bus actually has to be efficient, which means batteries and regenerative braking.

Some diesel electric trains now have large batteries and can recapture the braking power. Though this is seen as a bonus; the primary goal of the batteries is generally to be able to switch off the engines in station to reduce local diesel emissions.

Re: Hydrogen vs. Battery Buses: A European Transit Reality Check

#69

Post by rsynnott »

mmooss wrote: post #56
rsynnott wrote: post #4

I think battery buses have comprehensively won this one, to be honest. The biggest hydrogen bus fleet seems to be 35 vehicles; there are many BEV bus fleets in the hundreds and some in the thousands. As a certified old person, I'm having trouble getting used to them. It is unnatural for a double-decker bus to pull up near-silently, and then move off smoothly when you get on. They are _supposed_ to vibrate violently a…

> The biggest hydrogen bus fleet seems to be 35 vehicles From the OP: Cologne is one of the few relatively good news stories for hydrogen bus fleets. Regionalverkehr Köln (RVK) has become the largest operator of hydrogen fuel cell buses in Europe, with a fleet that reached 101 vehicles by late 2024 and is expected to grow to 160 by the end of 2025.

Ah, I was going on the table in the article, which has Cologne at 35; it seem to be out of date, though.

Re: Hydrogen vs. Battery Buses: A European Transit Reality Check

#70

Post by rsynnott »

londons_explore wrote: post #18

Busses currently have big engines and fuel tanks (or motors and batteries). That intuitively makes sense - obviously a big vehicle needs more energy than a small one like a car. However, typical city bus routes spend most of their time under 30 mph, cutting aerodynamic drag by a whopping 90% compared to 70 mph highway cruising that a car does. With more work on rolling resistance (buying super-good bearings and fancy…

As an example, most of Dublin Bus’s electric fleet have 450kWh batteries for a range of 320km. So, bigger than a car, but not as much as you’d expect given that the buses are 20 tonne fully laden and take a hundred passengers.
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