
Do Londoners dream of electric buses? - cgravill
https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2018/06/26/do-londoners-dream-of-electric-buses/
======
nothrabannosir
_> Londoners might not dream of electric buses, …_

Every single cyclist dreams of electric busses, believe you me.

Huffing nitrogen stationary-bus-fart oxides turns any public road here
straight into an express lane to lung cancer, without even the courtesy of a
nicotine rush.

I laugh when people say cycling is healthy. Not in London. Nooo sir. Between
the long term certainty of whatever smokers like to aim for, and the short
term gamble of “brain-on-asphalt syndrome”, it’s a bloody joke.

Electric busses can’t rule the streets soon enough.

~~~
albertgoeswoof
Is there any research to back up your claim? What are the chances of getting
cancer from this? Is there even a direct link? Is it better in aggregate to be
an unfit bus rider or a fit cyclist?

~~~
ditn
There's actually the opposite evidence; it's worse to be in a vehicle than
walk or cycle, and there's a few studies that say that the benefits of cycling
outweigh the pollution exposure.

[http://www.breathelondon.org/south-east/project/modes-
transp...](http://www.breathelondon.org/south-east/project/modes-transport)

~~~
Reason077
Most smart people driving in London are going to leave their car's climate
control on the "recirculate" setting whenever possible. That gives you a more-
or-less closed environment, running cabin air back through the car's filters
rather than sucking in dirty air from the street.

But cyclists and pedestrians have no such luxury - they're breathing in the
filth whenever they're on, or near, a busy road.

~~~
kaybe
If you only have a paper filter that won't help at all.

~~~
Reason077
By using the "recirculate" setting you avoid bringing in polluted air from
outside the car in the first place, so it certainly does help. Just return to
fresh air when away from busy roads and polluted areas.

And paper filters do, of course, remove dust and particulates, which are part
of the problem. Just not things like NOx and volatile organics. And depending
on the filter, it may not be effective against really small (eg PM2.5)
particles.

------
melling
China is adding electric buses at an incredible rate. Every 5 weeks China adds
a London sized fleet of electric buses:

[https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/04/china-is-adding-a-
lon...](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/04/china-is-adding-a-london-sized-
electric-bus-fleet-every-five-weeks/)

[https://www.curbed.com/2018/5/4/17320838/china-bus-
shenzhen-...](https://www.curbed.com/2018/5/4/17320838/china-bus-shenzhen-
electric-bus-transportation)

~~~
michaelbuckbee
The Curbed article states that in Shenzen half a percent of the bus fleet is
still diesel, but that half percent contributes 20% of the pollution. Can't
wait for more electrics.

------
detritus
A peripheral benefit of electrified buses would be regenerative braking.

I've lost count of the amount of times that grubby, dusty brake pads have led
to screeching that makes me feel like my ears are about to bleed, when buses
have come to a standstill beside me. I once even wrote to TFL about the
problem, weird little man that I am. Never received a response.

~~~
telchar
You're not the only one bothered by that. I find school buses and small
delivery vehicles to be the worst on that, given the frequent stops and starts
and minimal maintenance they receive. The city buses here are marginally
better but not by much.

------
neolefty
TFA has great practical information about the switch from diesel to battery. A
few examples:

* How do you arrange parked buses in a garage so that they can charge? Diagrams included!

* Purchase cost: 2x up front compared to diesel, but improving

* Operating cost: 50% lower than diesel (but labor—hiring the driver—is still 60%)

~~~
jeffwass
No inclusion of the knock-on benefits of NHS savings from fewer cases of
diesel exhaust complications.

~~~
jdavis703
What if having people die early from diesel fumes winds up saving NHS more
money though [0]?

0: [https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/18/news/tobacco-giants-
analy...](https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/18/news/tobacco-giants-analysis-
says-premature-deaths-cut-costs-in-pensions-and.html)

------
hiharryhere
I live on the 153 route in Islington which was recently converted to these BYD
all electric buses.

It's fantastic. In a quiet residential area they are nearly silent and when I
cycle by them on the way work there's no fumes.

The strangest thing is when you ride them you hear every seat rattle and
squeak because there's no roaring engine to drown it out.

------
chris_va
_A key difference is that diesel can “recharge” a bus in a matter of minutes,
so buses simply queue up at a pump and then drive off. With electric, it takes
a few hours overnight, so they had to install a long line of charging points
right down the middle of the garage._

... Anyone here know why swappable batteries haven't taken off for fleets?

~~~
htgb
In Gothenburg, where Volvo is increasing the trials of electric buses, there
are charging stations at the end of lines. So the bus charges roughly 10
minutes, twice per round trip.

As an aside, riding them is very nice -- the noise level is very low.

The project:
[https://www.electricitygoteborg.se/en](https://www.electricitygoteborg.se/en)

------
tom_
Most interesting part of the article for me:

> and being of considerable utility, they are remarkably undamaged. It seems
> that sticking chewing gum in things only applies when the vandal feels they
> wont personally lose out

(assuming this is actually true, and not another in a long local tradition of
overly rose-tinted journalistic views of our grim North Sea shithole)

~~~
1ba9115454
\- grim North Sea shithole

Spend some time in other coutries and you'll yearn to return. Trust me.

~~~
mcjiggerlog
Over 3 years in Spain and no plans to return to Brexitlandia.

The UK has it's good points, but better quality of life can be found
elsewhere.

~~~
growlist
Not much QOL though if you're one of the millions of unemployed.

~~~
ben_w
And that’s why I never bought a place in Merthyr Tydfil despite being famously
affordable, and also why I moved out of Aberystwyth when I graduated despite
it looking pretty and being a good place for really long quiet countryside
walks.

High unemployment in an area sucks even when you personally have a job. Given
nothing will stop Brexit, I wish I could say I thought Westminster cared
enough to provide replacements for EU support of the poorest regions of the
UK… but, and this is mere opinion, I don’t think it can see past Kensington
nine days out of ten.

~~~
growlist
I was talking about Spain. Opportunities for young people are not good there
atm - worse than the UK.

~~~
ben_w
I know you were. I’m saying that _conditions in the UK are about to get a lot
worse_ because the impoverished areas are about to lose support that
Westminster doesn’t appear to understand that it needs to replace post-Brexit
— support which would still be necessary even if Brexit had literally zero
economic effects, which, given their track record of overconfidence since
Austerity began, would be a surprisingly good outcome.

~~~
growlist
Come on though, this supposed austerity is nothing of the sort, with lavish
benefits still in place and an unsustainable level of public spending, never
mind the gargantuan debt - and we don't even have a proper low tax alternative
political party anymore now that the Tories have decided to keep the spending
taps turned on full. And no one really knows what's going to happen post
Brexit. We could become the successful low-tax Singapore style trading hub
that so terrifies Europe. I can speculate also.

~~~
ben_w
> We could become the successful low-tax Singapore style trading hub that so
> terrifies Europe. I can speculate also.

The UK’s main problem isn’t any _particular_ UK goal, it’s the total lack of
anyone competent in charge and, separately, the lack of anyone
powerful/charismatic enough to pick _only one_ of the, I count six, main
mutually-incompatible post-Brexit targets (each of which comes in left and
right wing variations) and say “this one and none of the others”.

Right now, becoming like Singapore wouldn’t have enough support from
Brexiteers, never mind Westminster. Unfortunately, the same is true for 100%
of the negotiating positions thus far named, and nobody (seems to have)
thought about afterwards at all.

~~~
growlist
I agree with you on the absolute paucity of leadership - but I'd extend that
to Labour also. And I suspect the lack of planning for afterwards was partly
out of denial that the plebs would ever dare vote leave, and partly
deliberately to make leaving so disastrous that it becomes impossible -
something which the civil service has been accused of.

~~~
ben_w
I marginally agree about Labour: they mainly portray themselves better just
because they don’t need to actually do anything. However, my agreement is not
absolute: on the other hand everyone knows that none of the MPs like Corbyn
yet the wider party loves him and MPs will therefore mostly do what he says,
so he can — bizarrely — be the strong and stable leader that May thought she
was, and May can be the leaf blowing in the wind that she thought he was.

As for the latter, I think only the first. The second component would require
the government to be as smart as it thinks it is rather than as dumb as it is
currently acting. While I am sure some in the government will make such
accusations as genuine and sincere beliefs, the government reminds me of a
former client who took something like four attempts at telling me to make a
button “wider” and rejecting the changes before I ended up asking for a
picture and discovering they meant “taller”.

By the way, thanks for keeping it polite! This is a massively divisive topic
and I want to applaud every single involved person who avoids internet
shouting.

------
martinald
Interesting about getting sufficient power supplies in. 2.5MW is a lot.

~~~
wffurr
They overprovisioned, and never actually got close to that in practice.

------
keithpeter
Just down the road from Waterloo Travelodge which is quiet, cheap and a good
base for central London explorations should anyone be visiting. While in that
part of the Great Wen, don't miss Roupell Street around 5pm.

------
olivermarks
[https://www.energy-uk.org.uk/energy-industry/electricity-
gen...](https://www.energy-uk.org.uk/energy-industry/electricity-
generation.html)

------
markatkinson
And tall white fountains?

