
Electric Buses Are Hurting the Oil Industry - jseliger
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-23/electric-buses-are-hurting-the-oil-industry
======
danans
It's a strange shift in affairs that China appears to have the greatest
incentives (urban pollution, petroleum imports) today to advance clean
transportation and energy while the US has stalled or moved backward, at least
the Federal level.

Western European countries, for whom fossil fuels don't seem to be an identity
politics issue like in the US, are also making more progress in electrifying
their transportation and developing renewable generation - like those massive
offshore turbines in the North Sea, or the more comprehensive EV charging
networks.

Again, they seem to have stronger incentives: high gas/petrol prices, higher
population density, tense relations with Russia - their big petroleum and
natural gas supplier, and the desire to gain an advantage in clean energy
technology while the US is seemingly regressing.

Perhaps states that have taken the problem seriously - wind in Texas, Iowa,
EVs in CA, WA, NY, will carry the torch for the US without the Federal
government's support.

~~~
abakker
I don't know if it really proves anything and it might be OT from your point,
but, the confounding variable is that in the US - especially outside of the
major urban areas - _everything_ is just very far away in terms of miles.
Lacking a car, you can expect life to be very difficult. there are still
plenty of places in the US where the range of a tesla might be a borderline
problem week-to-week. (though probably not as often as people think and if you
plan well)

My casual observation is that smaller countries just have a lot more good
options when it comes to transit because the total distances are much smaller.

~~~
freddie_mercury
The OP was talking about China. China is bigger than the continental US. I
think the persistent myth about the US's size being some unique problem
doesn't explain much.

What's more, if you think of the EU as a comparison for the US, with the
individual counties as analogues for US states, it seems to explain even less.
Belgium and Massachusetts are the same size but over has much better transit
options than the other.

~~~
abakker
In 2015, Belgium had a Population density of 363people/Km^2. Massachusetts in
2015 had 336 people/KM^2. So, pretty close. The difference is that Belgium has
a much more uniform population distribution vs Massachusetts.

Secondarily, Belgium can define it's own national policy, while MA must
compromise with the rest of the country, including CA, WY, MT, and NY, all of
which have very different economic and practical concerns.

The US's size is not a unique problem, but, it is _a_ problem, and the
governmental structure we have chosen does pose some unique problems.

~~~
freddie_mercury
Obviously the US has some structural issues, otherwise it wouldn't have these
persistent failures. All I'm doing is pushing back against the simplistic "but
the US is so big compared to all those tiny countries".

If you want to talk about density or uniform distribution... Why is Australian
public transit so much better than American public transit?

America's governmental structure isn't unique either. There are other
countries with the same kind of federalism.

And similar rebuttals can be made for virtually all other explanations.

I guess what I'm really getting at is that in the real world there are no easy
solutions or explanations to problems despite the penchant in places like HN
and Reddit to try to reduce explanations to a single paragraph. America's
problems are likely due to a complex interaction between federalism, its
geographic size, its traditional wariness of cities, its first mover advantage
turning into obsolete infrastructure, and many other factors besides. But it
is hard to know that the relative importance of any of those things actually
is.

If you say Belgium can make its own policy, you are almost certainly making an
off the cuff comment. There are dozens, possibly hundreds, of Europe-wide
rules and regulations on transit that limit what Belgium can do. Belgium has
to work across borders just like Massachusetts does. From Directive 95/19 on
safety certification to Directive 2005/47 on the working conditions of workers
on services that happen to cross a border. Since 2007 every European railway
undertaking is able to off er rail freight services on every line in every EU
country.

It is a mistake to paint a picture where Belgium has unlimited unilateral
decision making powers.

~~~
not_kurt_godel
> Why is Australian public transit so much better than American public
> transit?

I would guess it's because Australia is, like, 99% uninhabited and
uninhabitable or borderline uninhabitable[1], which probably means they can
focus resources almost exclusively on the few densely populated areas.
Additionally Australia's urban population seems to be significantly higher
than America's (~89% vs ~80% according to 5 seconds of Googling I just did) so
there's probably greater political will for investing in urban areas, and that
political will probably also isn't resisted/sabotaged by an electoral system
that grants hugely disproportionate representation to non-urban areas that
have little to gain from realistic/economically sensible investments in public
transportation.

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/8ehplw/australian_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/8ehplw/australian_population_density_2017_6776x4732/)

~~~
contras1970
so USA has poorer public transport than Europe because the latter has much
more uniform population distribution; USA also has poorer public transport
than Australia because the latter has much more skewed population
distribution.

american exceptionalism at its finest. :)

~~~
freddie_mercury
It's the Goldilocks syndrome. Population density has to be juuuust right to
result in American transit. It couldn't possibly be due to any other
factors.........

------
lenepp
One interesting feature of articles like this that I don't really get is that
they often leave out a huge huge quality of life benefit that electric
vehicles bring: reduced urban machine noise.

~~~
stephengillie
The visceral excitement from the noise and vibration is a key part of auto
marketing, and automakers are struggling to sell cars without it. Some people
enjoy the attention they get from their loud, smelly cars - old Porsches,
Harley Davidson motorcycles, and large trucks come to mind. Which is why some
EVs play engine noises from internal speakers.

~~~
l0b0
This sounds so bizarrely immature to me - like the trolls that sabotage their
vehicle's noise suppression. I wonder if they realise they catch people's
attention because the onlookers are simply waiting for them to leave so they
can resume hearing themselves think.

Also, I thought EVs make noise to alert pedestrians and bicyclists, because
the general public isn't used to quiet cars yet and honking the horn is likely
to have the wrong effect.

------
michaelbuckbee
The scale of this is astounding and wonderful:

"China had about 99 percent of the 385,000 electric buses on the roads
worldwide in 2017, accounting for 17 percent of the country’s entire fleet.
Every five weeks, Chinese cities add 9,500 of the zero-emissions
transporters—the equivalent of London’s entire working fleet, according
Bloomberg New Energy Finance."

~~~
ams6110
While electric buses are almost certainly an emissions win compared to the no
doubt primitive and dirty Chinese diesel buses, I doubt it is it fair to call
them zero-emission? China burns a lot of coal for electrical power.

~~~
ChuckMcM
That is picking nits :-) Not only is China rapidly building nuclear power
plants, containing the emissions of one plant burning coal is easier than
containing the emissions of the 10,000 buses that plant provides power to
operate.

There is also a benefit to China converting from oil (something imported[1])
to coal (something available locally[2]).

[1] [https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Chinas-Becomes-
Worlds-...](https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Chinas-Becomes-Worlds-Next-
Top-Oil-Importer.html)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_China)

~~~
craftyguy
> That is picking nits

No, actually it's not. The source of electricity matters, and just because
something doesn't directly emit pollutants does __not __mean its power is
derived without emitting pollutants.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I don't disagree the source of electricity does matter. But who is to say
where the electron coming out of the plug came from? Perhaps it came from one
of their existing nuclear plants[1] ?

For me, when you get to the point where you can construct two valid statements
that both are supported by available information, yet one disproves a
statement and the other proves it, you have reached the point of 'nits'.

In this case :

"They are not zero emission because electricity can come from a coal fired
plant."

"The are zero emission because electricity can come from a nuclear power
plant."

Pedants could go a different way, they could say "the _bus_ is zero emission
but the infrastructure isn't."

We saw a lot of that with solar panels where people would argue that the
energy to smelt the aluminum to make the frames and furnaces to grow the
silicon ingots far exceeded any amount of energy that the solar cells
themselves would provide.

But one has to wonder, what is the point of arguing at that level when, as the
article states, the pollution where the buses are deployed is significantly
less?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China)

~~~
lmm
> But one has to wonder, what is the point of arguing at that level when, as
> the article states, the pollution where the buses are deployed is
> significantly less?

Pollution where deployed isn't the issue, overall pollution is (the main
impact of CO2 is climate change on a _global_ scale). Significant reductions
in pollution are to be celebrated, but it's wrong - and takes away from your
point - to emphasise something as " _zero_ emission" when it isn't.

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
_Pollution where deployed isn 't the issue, overall pollution is_

I think inhabitants of large Chinese cities that have to wear masks when they
go for a walk would disagree.

Actually, both things are quite relevant. Pollution in cities poisons and
kills people in the short run, climate change would kill us all in the long
run.

------
jac_no_k
Cyclist here in Tokyo with hybrid buses. The hybrid buses start from stop on
purely electric power. The diesel engine seems to kick in at speeds above
10kph. Compared to the large amount of exhaust belched out of diesel only, as
cyclist sometime stuck behind a bus, the electric start is a big relief.

Can't wait until Japan adopts the same all electric design.

~~~
ItsMe000001
Here in Germany with have quite a few hydrogen powered buses.

Examples:

(German) [https://www.ksta.de/region/rhein-erft/huerth/ab-2019-neue-
wa...](https://www.ksta.de/region/rhein-erft/huerth/ab-2019-neue-
wasserstoffbusse-fuer-huerth-geplant-29511032)

But also elsewhere in Europe (here: South Tyrol, Italy):
[http://www.greenmobility.bz.it/en/projekte/die-bozner-
wasser...](http://www.greenmobility.bz.it/en/projekte/die-bozner-
wasserstoffbusse/die-bozner-wasserstoffbusse/)

Nothing but water vapor coming out of them.

~~~
coryfklein
> Water vapor is the most potent greenhouse gas owing to the presence of the
> hydroxyl bond which strongly absorbs in the infra-red region of the light
> spectrum. [1]

Though I can't tell whether water vapor created at the surface has the same
effect as water vapor at altitude.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor)

------
shermozle
Please stop linking to Bloomberg.

The auto-play video at least is muted, but when you go and press the pause
button it... unmutes the video. Then you have to press it again to actually
pause.

Fuck these guys and their dark patterns.

~~~
pathseeker
Better than the NYT/WSJ/etc links that slam you right into paywalls.

~~~
Beltiras
Use this bookmarklet:

    
    
        javascript:window.location.href='https://m.facebook.com/l.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(window.location.href);

------
Endama
I think few people know that a bunch of public transit was actually electric
in the early/mid 20th century. Car companies, most notably GM, conspired to
convert public transport to gas to make public transit less comfortable
compared to private car ownership[1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy)

~~~
dvtv75
I remember riding on Dunedin's (New Zealand) Trolley Bus service when I was
very small, which were standard bus bodies that were hooked to overhead power
lines. I remember the driver hooking the bus back to the power lines. Must
have been about '78 or '79.

~~~
i_feel_great
I remember them in Auckland at about the same time. Every trip it would lose
the contact with the overhead lines and the driver would get out with his
stick and move it back. I also remember for the being very quiet, except for a
quiet hum and whine inside. And they accelerated very fast.

------
sfifs
While the reducing pollution piece is captured here, interestingly the
reducing oil imports dependency is not captured in the article which I would
imagine is equally important here.

~~~
airstrike
I guess with the advent of shale, things aren’t as black-and-white for the
U.S. as they once were.

~~~
francisofascii
With regard to the US, I would argue the dependence on fossil fuels is bad
regardless if the oil is imported or not. Being a fossil fuel "producer" is a
misnomer because you aren't creating new fossil fuels. You are simply burning
through your own home reserves faster.

------
pnathan
It is clear that China, in particular, has embraced a future-oriented way of
thinking in managing its society. While I quite fundamentally disagree with
some of what the leadership does in terms of human rights & democracy, it is
certain that they are taking bold and progressive steps in technological
areas.

I should learn Chinese - I expect it to be the key language in 30 years.

~~~
make3
as machine translation is a field of machine learning research with the
largest budgets and even though it's not perfect it's already pretty good, in
30 years it will likely be solved and it may not really matter which language
you know

~~~
chaoky
Machine translation is AI-hard. If this happens in 30 years we might as well
have reached the singularity as computers will understand natural language and
all of its meaning completely.

~~~
coryfklein
If Google Translate hasn't surpassed OP's ability to speak Chinese in 30 years
then I'll eat my hat.

------
rmason
What's sad is that the majority of electric buses being purchased both in
America and around the globe aren't manufactured in the US.

We have a Silicon Valley company, Tesla, that kicked off the world-wide move
to battery powered autos. Why is there not a US company recognized as the
leader in buses?

There are a few California companies on this list but they're tiny. Here in
Michigan the leading player is French and they're self-driving as well. I
wonder how American manufacturers failed to grab this market. Detroit should
have owned this industry.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_electric_bus_makers_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_electric_bus_makers_and_models)

~~~
inferiorhuman
> What's sad is that the majority of electric buses being purchased both in
> America and around the globe aren't manufactured in the US.

Detroit should have gotten started on this, sure. But who in Detroit? There
just aren't that many American coach builders left in the transit space. GM's
bus division got sold off in the 80s, and eventually got sold to Volvo.
Flxible eventually went out of business in the 90s (not helped by safety
issues). Mack got out of coach building ages ago (and is owned by Volvo these
days). Neoplan just built German designs, and went out of business about ten
years ago. NABI just built Ikarus (Hungarian) designs and got bought out and
shut down by Volvo. Ford and Kenworth haven't built buses in ages. Crown
imported some Ikarus buses, but they went out of business a while ago. Blue
Bird doesn't do transit buses to the best of my knowledge. Gillig is still
around but has mostly been a bit player in the Bay Area at least.

That said, Reagan's Buy American mandate has ensured the opposite, at least
within the public transit sphere. Major components that are not American made
need waivers if DOT funds are used.

Trolley coaches (what many may think of when they think of electric buses) are
pretty rare in the United States. Out here our trolley coaches are mostly
Orion (Canadian, bought by Mercedes-Benz, now defunct) and New Flyer
(Canadian). Both assembled their vehicles in the United States. Hell, even our
decrepit Skoda buses were assembled in San Francisco.

Battery electric buses are almost unheard of in the United States (unsure if
this the chicken or egg part of the problem), and the only ones I've seen in
person were in Madrid and those were tiny.

Diesel-electric hybrids are becoming quite a bit more common, and for the
diesel part of the hybrid equation you'll generally find American motors (e.g.
Cummins, Detroit Diesel).

So, sure, it'd be nice to see American companies leading the way with electric
buses (at least domestically). I'd argue there's just not enough critical mass
for that to happen. It's the same reason Sukhoi's SSJ hasn't sold well. They
have such minimal presence outside of Russia that it's hard to get parts and
support for them. Even Mexico's Interjet which has reportedly been quite happy
with their SSJs has had to ground them.

~~~
tomjakubowski
Here in Los Angeles, LADOT has a handful of battery electric buses in their
fleet, for the short DASH routes near downtown [1]. LADOT is the smaller,
municipal counterpart to the county's Metro system. The buses themselves are a
bit shorter than an average city bus, though that is typical for DASH. I
wouldn't call them tiny.

I guess that because they're so quiet, when the bus makes a turn, a
loudspeaker on the front of the bus calls out, "Bus is turning right." Pretty
funny to hear the first time.

[1]: [https://la.streetsblog.org/2017/01/12/electric-dash-buses-
to...](https://la.streetsblog.org/2017/01/12/electric-dash-buses-to-begin-
service-in-dtla-next-week/)

~~~
inferiorhuman
Well tiny is relative, they were probably 25-30ft long which is fairly
standard in the US. Meanwhile San Francisco has 40 ft and 60 ft hybrid and
trolley coaches.

------
codemusings
You know, they could have titled this article: "Electric Buses are affecting
the Oil Industry."

Yet they didn't. Are we supposed to feel sorry for the oil industry? The
electric car can't come fast enough.

------
dver
Working at Proterra, we're doing our part.

~~~
dzhiurgis
Can you outline a bit how cities are customising the buses?

I've a bit of the report posted here a week or so. There are over 20 companies
(of course ones in US and EU paying 2-3x over Chinese ones) and I can't fathom
what they are competing over. Seems like a huge waste of resources.

~~~
dver
It's one of the difficulties in manufacturing for US entities is the huge
amount of customization. Pretty much everything outside of the shell, battery
pack and motor, can/is customized.

We of course think our tech is better.

------
pingou
"they consume 30 times more fuel than average sized cars". Is that true? That
seems gigantic, I thought taking so bus was so much better for the planet than
taking your car.

~~~
justinator
Bus weighs ~30,000 pounds. Car, ~4,000. So I would question this stat.

At full capacity, a bus would be able to pack more people, in a much smaller
space than a full capacity car, so there's your savings in fuel.

Plus I would assume that one, larger engine in a bus is more efficient than
~10 smaller engines. There's also the hidden cost of manufacturing a bus -
does one bus take less resources to manufacture than the cars it may be able
to replace?

According to,

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport#Buses)

"A commuter service in Santa Barbara, California, USA, found average diesel
bus efficiency of 6.0 mpg‑US (39 L/100 km; 7.2 mpg‑imp) (using MCI 102DL3
buses). With all 55 seats filled this equates to 330 passenger mpg; with 70%
filled, 231 passenger mpg.[51]"

[51]
[http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy00osti/26758.pdf](http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy00osti/26758.pdf)

~~~
adrianN
Plus more busses means less congestion and smoother traffic causes less
emissions.

------
_bxg1
Worried as I am about China's authoritarian practices and their growing
influence, they sure are effective at solving environmental problems.

~~~
zaroth
You may have missed this point in TFA;

“China is ahead on electrifying its fleet because it has the world’s worst
pollution problem. With a growing urban population and galloping energy
demand, the nation’s legendary smogs were responsible for 1.6 million extra
deaths in 2015, according to non-profit Berkeley Earth.”

It’s great to celebrate progress, but don’t fall for the spin.

A study published in Nature [1] found 3.3 million deaths per year worldwide
attributed to air pollution. China owning nearly half that is mind blowing.

The figure for the U.S., by comparison, is 60-80,000. In terms of per capita
mortality rate, China’s polution problem is 5x more deadly. [2]

Economics is the study of allocation of scarce resources. China investing more
heavily in electrifying their buses is not surprising in the context of a
deadly pollution epidemic. The same level of investment into electric buses in
the US would be a tradgedy in the sense of actual lives lost due to gross
misallocation of public funds.

[1] -
[https://www.nature.com/articles/nature15371](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature15371)

[2] - (1.6e6 / 1.3e9) / (8e4 / 3.2e8)

~~~
danans
> The same level of investment into electric buses in the US would be a
> tradgedy in the sense of actual lives lost due to gross misallocation of
> public funds.

I get it that you don't like public investment in electric buses, but there is
no evidence to suggest that such investment would cause any "actual lives
lost", vs the other much bigger public budget items in the US.

If anything, more people in buses would likely reduce a significant cause of
deaths in the US: car accidents.

~~~
zaroth
I have no issue at all with the appropriate level of investment in electric
buses.

Investment in public transit in general is besides the point. It’s economic
fact that paying more for an _electric_ bus and building the infrastructure to
support them is more justifiable and will provide better ROI in China where
the pollution is 5x more deadly.

If your metric is spending dollars efficiently to save lives, there’s better
ROI in the US by spending the money elsewhere.

~~~
danans
> If your metric is spending dollars efficiently to save lives, there’s better
> ROI in the US by spending the money elsewhere.

It's massively oversimplifying the trade-off to reduce it to a single metric,
and it proposes a false choice.

Why not also consider reducing congestion, reducing local-air-pollution
related respiratory conditions, etc?

And compared to the known types of huge government expenditures that might be
doing actual harm to some subset of citizens (i.e. lives lost in wars of
questionable value) why point the finger at electric buses?

------
hackbinary
Okay, cool. But the energy still has to be produced somehow. Are we shifting
the diesel to coal power plants? So for every km driven, what is the
comparative amount of CO2 produced? Is there a net benefit in this regard?
Coal power plants might be more efficient, but then we are shifting the smoke
stacks.

Then what about the batteries? The batteries need to be produced, and they
have a useful lifespan, then need to be disposed of or recycled. How do we
deal with all of that contamination?

Are we further ahead with electric cars and buses?

I went to the Volvo museum last year and learned that pneumatic tires consume
something like 30% of the energy expended by road vehicles, should we not be
focusing on better rail transport? Or solid tire technology?

~~~
wazoox
Even producing electricity from non renewable in large power plants is better
than using these same fuels directly: large power plants are much more
efficient (close to 40% energy efficiency vs 30% for vehicle motors), and
allow much more easily to filter out pollution, including CO2 capture. Sure
going from diesel to coal would be bad, but going from diesel engines to
diesel power plant would be a significant gain.

~~~
varjag
It is also a lot easier to shift centralized power generation (from coal to
natural gas, to wind, import from neighbour countries) than across the fleet
of millions privately owned vehicles.

------
white-flame
Diesel vs electric is a false dichotomy. Many cities in north america have
natural-gas powered buses, and a lot of taxi fleets are CNG as well. Then
there's also old-style cable cars and overhead electric lines scattered
around, too.

~~~
acdha
CNG misses the win from regenerative braking on a massive vehicle in traffic.
That’s going to reduce the fuel burned even if the systems are comparable in
emissions and also reduces the particulate emissions from brake pads which are
linked to various health problems.

~~~
kalleboo
> CNG misses the win from regenerative braking on a massive vehicle in traffic

CNG hybrid busses are gaining traction where I'm from in Europe
[https://www.vanhool.be/en/public-transport/exquicity-
brt/cng...](https://www.vanhool.be/en/public-transport/exquicity-brt/cng-
hybrid)

~~~
acdha
Good clarification: I should have specified that as direct drive since hybrid
approaches can clearly make sense and I'd bet can be easier to engineer since
the engine doesn't need to handle variable speed and power demands.

------
ajuc
This doesn't include trolleybuses, which are more common in Europe (not by
orders of magnitude, but still).

Also some modern trolleybuses have batteries in them so they can service
routes where power lines are only on parts of the route.

------
garadox
Isn't that the point? What a strange title for an article.

~~~
hohenheim
I thought the same. The title portraits the change as a negative thing and in
the text there is no mention of the benefits that this brings :/

------
nichtich
I'm a bit surprised nobody has mentioned the fraud[1]. The reason electric bus
becomes so popular in China recently is mainly because of government
subsidies. Well that's the intended consequence and most people are OK with
it.

What's problematic is that the subsidy is a fix amount for certain kind of
vehicle. And it turns out bus is more efficient in terms of subsidy/cost
ratio. And since the subsidy is a fixed amount, bus maker can cut a lot of
corners and make a bare minimum of a bus which may cost even less than the
subsidy. Now they can dump these buses to a local government basically free
and bribe the operators to drive the buses once a while to receive the
subsidy[2].

I mean I'm all for green buses. But if electric buses out-sale electric cars a
lot, you have to wonder why. And one obvious reason is buses are mostly bought
in large quantities by entities not very concerned about cost/profitability,
ie local governments. So it is much easier for bus related fraud than cars
facing mostly individual consumers.

[1] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-fines-five-auto-makers-
fo...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-fines-five-auto-makers-for-electric-
vehicle-subsidy-fraud-1473337367) [2]
[http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1001382/company-accused-of-
run...](http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1001382/company-accused-of-running-
empty-buses-for-green-subsidies)

------
Shivetya
I have been of the opinion that the US government should have not pushed EV
adoption by subsidizing moving all school buses to EV. The reasons are many
but most important is having children used to the idea of EV as a good means
for local travel, not having all those diesel buses spewing fumes on to people
while loading and unloading at schools, and finally keeping school systems
from financial issues incurred by rising fuel costs.

This page gives the numbers of one of Georgia's largest school bus fleets.
[http://www.cobbk12.org/centraloffice/Transportation/](http://www.cobbk12.org/centraloffice/Transportation/)

(numbers)

    
    
        875 Bus Drivers
        139 Bus Monitors
        886 Conventional Buses
        288 Special Needs Buses
        870 Routes per day
        37,530 Bus Stops per day
        68,673 Miles Traveled per day
        72,544 Students Transported each day

~~~
dredmorbius
Extraneous "not"?

"...should have _not_ pushed EV adoption..."

------
hghar
China is definitely going on the right direction, I live in Bogotá Colombia
and according to the mayor of Bogotá, the benefit of electric buses are
comparable to buses fueled by natural gas, which I think is not that accurate.
Despite the new trending worldwide of adopting electric buses, we are not
getting them in the near future part of it are political reasons because the
cost of an electrical bus is about the same than a diesel bus as far as I
know.

Hopefully, this changes in the near future and the government get serious
about going green on the public transportation.

------
banachtarski
Completely off topic but it just occurred to me that I haven't seen the "X is
killing the Y" rhetoric recently and I'm grateful for that.

------
ensiferum
Can people please stop talking about "zero emission" when talking about
electric vehicles. This is intellectual dishonesty. The electricity isn't
generated without emissions. The car isn't "environmental". The only
environmental vehicle is the one that is _NOT_ manufactured.

------
known
I think Lithium Ion is hurting OPEC
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_densitie...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_densities_of_common_energy_storage_materials)

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john_minsk
If they have good batteries and enough nuclear power, charging vehicles will
take care of extra electricity produced during nights.

Win-win

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keithnz
But, how are they making electricity? Coal?

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lallysingh
About 66% is coal:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China)

But it's on a downtrend. I believe it's a lot easier to clean up centralized
sources of pollution (power plants) than diffused ones (vehicles).

I'm mostly worried about batteries and the politics and rare earth metals.

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seanmcdirmid
China has traditionally had the opposite problem: cars had decent enough
emission equipment while coal plants would frequently disable their own (coal
contributed to more of Beijing’s problem than vehicle emissions, mainly
because of poorly operated heating plants). With the crack down on pollution,
that is changing, though the real clean up happens when they move off coal (to
NG, renewables, and nuclear).

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tomc1985
Oh, shucks...

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JulianMorrison
Hurt it harder. The oil industry deserves to be ruined with absolute malice.

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gregknicholson
Good.

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jernfrost
I wonder what happens when China becomes more environmentally friendly than
the US. What sort of excuses will the Trump crow come up with then?

Usually whatever is done in Europe is ignored in the US, with the reason that
China is so much worse. China has been a useful bogeyman for conservatives for
decades as a reason to not make any sort of improvement whether related to the
environment, workers salaries, work conditions, universal health care etc.

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coldtea
Oh, the humanity

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jlebrech
Sounds like good news

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nothrabannosir
Is this a submarine PR ad for the Chinese government? Not to take away from
the objective positivity of the actual facts, but it feels eerily cheerleady.
Almost childish, if nothing else… I count at least five pointless “ha ha look
who’s laughing now” and “China is leading the world” in this, and a surprising
lack of counterbalance. Perhaps I’m just seeing things?

But yes: great.

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losteric
I think you are seeing things. China is mentioned because they had the worst
pollution problems, seriously invested in electric, and are now realizing the
payoff. The numbers support the narrative.

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contingencies
Shenzhen resident here. Every time a large petroleum vehicle goes past I hear
it. On the other side of the block there is a bus depot - totally silent - all
Shenzhen buses and 50% of taxis are now electric. It's great.

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dvtv75
Has there been an improvement in air quality or have the changes been too
small to have an impact as yet?

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contingencies
Haven't been here long enough (~12 months) to anecdata that, but it's
generally recognized that government policies are increasing air quality
rapidly in many major cities. Example policies: routinely spraying water on
the roads in dusty areas and near construction sites, banning motorbikes from
city centers, banning the import of second hand vehicles, encouraging electric
vehicles, moving polluting industries away from population centers, increasing
industrial regulation, reducing opportunities and increasing penalties for
corruption. I have a German friend who builds air quality monitoring systems
for export here and he said that restaurant kitchen air vents are actually one
of the worst urban air polluters now. Another is construction. He said India's
cities, especially Delhi, are literally off the charts (sensors incapable of
registering pollution levels that high) and that, compared to India, China has
things well under control.

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Gibbon1
> banning motorbikes from city centers

Dirty thing people miss about motorbikes. Better mileage, but not as much as
you would think, in return for a lot more emissions. That said I'm lead to
understand that electric motorcycles and bicycles have become very common in
China.

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stephengillie
Larger motorcycles, like Harley Davidson, use the same size engines as compact
cars, like the Honda Fit. And they make a lot more noise dong so, which is
part of the marketing for them.

Will automakers start putting "engine speakers" on electric Harley Davidson
motorcycles and playing engine noises through them?

