We already have a fully electric bus fleet in my city (Oslo, Norway).
Granted, when we had a period of extreme cold and snow last winter there was a bit of chaos. The electric buses did struggle a bit with range (though we’re talking -20 C), but the main problem was the combination of rear wheel drive and lots of snow.
do they have heating? maybe i am out of the loop, but last thing i read about electric busses was that they end up scrapped quite fast. i will read up on oslo, thanks.
Yes, they’re modern city buses with heating and air conditioning. Most of the buses are from the Solaris Urbino Electric line, but we also have quite a few from Mercedes, BYD and MAN.
chances are that i was talking out of my behind, i will look into it, thanks for giving me doubts. what i last read was people freezing in busses, and busses being in depots for charging all the time.
you sure those bussus are fully elctric? my impression was hybrid.
No? San Francisco has had electric busses for decades. They go up and down hills all the time. Their only problem is they have no batteries, so once they are disconnected they stop. It happens every day.
I think something combination of a small battery and a direct connection will work great. The battery only needs to work for an hour and the bus will be able to get around just fine.