HN Gopher Feed (2017-12-28) - page 1 of 10 ___________________________________________________________________
Shenzhen Electrifies Entire Public Transit Bus Fleet
52 points by Element_
https://electrek.co/2017/12/28/shenzhen-electrifies-entire-publi...___________________________________________________________________
taobility - 1 hours ago
That will be Tesla's next big announcement
jdavis703 - 1 hours ago
Once they have the truck platform, won't it be easy to swap out
the trailer for a passenger cabin?
oomkiller - 1 hours ago
Musk seems to have different plans: http://fortune.com/2017/12/16
/elon-musk-public-transport/
rektide - 22 minutes ago
Talk about all the buses you want. What I really really want to
hear about is the chargers that make it possible. Give me maximum
MW rates and rates for how much each station can crank out in
total.
olivermarks - 1 hours ago
This is really impressive, I've been very skeptical of heavy
payload capability and range for electric vehicles until now. Will
be interesting to see how well they perform, how the charging
infrastructure works and battery life
trhway - 29 minutes ago
> very skeptical of heavy payload capability and range for
electric vehiclesheavy usually means "not that fast" - so less of
the speed-squared drug (at 25miles/hour i remember some guys did
double the range, like 400miles+, on a Tesla S) and also the
weight of the battery becomes less of a factor on the background
of the whole vehicle and cargo weight.
nwah1 - 1 hours ago
Is the grid in Shenzhen mostly coal-powered?
andschwa - 55 minutes ago
Coal provided electricity to power electric powers ends up
_still_ being cleaner than ICEs, which are just about the worst
in efficiency or cleanliness as you can get.
nwah1 - 48 minutes ago
Coal releases lead, radon, and other toxic pollutants into the
environment.And you haven't supported the assertion that coal-
powered EVs emit less CO2, and it contradicts what I've
generally heard elsewhere.
ecpottinger - 21 minutes ago
Do the math instead of listening to people who resist
change.You are right about the extra stuff that comes with
coal power, but you will find with a good modern coal plant,
transmission losses, and battery/electric motor loss still
puts less CO2 in the air that gasoline cars per mile
travelled.
seanmcdirmid - 9 minutes ago
Yes, but it depends on the coal and the emission controls on
the plant using it. This is china we are talking about after
all.Low quality coal used directly for heating in the villages,
for example, is very very dirty.
contingencies - 1 hours ago
Living in Shenzhen, it feels like probably 80% of the taxis are
electric already. Due to government subsidy the blue electric BYD
cabs are more spacious, cheaper (no 2? fuel surcharge), newer and
cleaner than the older red cabs, which are generally clunky dirty
squashed VWs. However, the drivers pay more to buy them even with
subsidy, and you need a conventional ICE vehicle to get out to the
factories in Dongguan, or to cross the border to Hong Kong.
melling - 34 minutes ago
The low-speed maglevs being built in China seem a little more
interesting.https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/construction-low-
speed-magl...Getting people from point A to B faster on mass
transit will get them out of cars and cabs.
seanmcdirmid - 8 minutes ago
The Changsha airport-train station maglev link is quite
convenient, and ya, definitely saves a cab trip.
pjc50 - 1 hours ago
They're turning up in Edinburgh too:
https://lothianbuses.co.uk/news/article/Lothian-introduce-th...I
suspect a lot of bus services around the world with emissions
targets are phasing them in right now.
helm33 - 1 hours ago
Denver bought a bunch of electric busses from BYD for service on
the 16th street mall. My understanding is BYD offered a 12 year
warranty on the batteries, in order to make the economics work.
rektide - 18 minutes ago
Good use case, because damn is it easy. It's ~2 miles, inside a
pedestrian corridor (one of the few in America, alas!). A modest
size battery pack would go quite a ways when you barely hit 10
mph (16 kph), at least if there's a solid regenerative brake.
trhway - 36 minutes ago
Stanford electric buses are BYD. It is right under the nose of
Tesla :) (on the med school route the buses even pass right by
the Tesla headquarters)
dwyerm - 1 hours ago
I noticed RTD had new buses last time I was there. I recall that
the original TransTeq EcoMark buses were very progressive for
their time. If I remember the story correctly, RTD couldn't find
a company that built the right bus for them, so they went off and
more or less built their own. Then, over the next decade and a
half, I began to see their distinctive low floors and warty roofs
in cities and airports all over the nation.I proud of my little
city for leading the way, but I'm a little sad to see that
TransTeq seems to have disappeared. For a while, it seemed like
their ideas were taking over the world. But at least the
technology advanced overall.Anyway, my favorite part about the
new BYD buses on the Mall is their noise. They have a speaker on
the front that 'growls' so that the otherwise-quiet buses have a
harder time sneaking up on pedestrians. New solutions to new
problems!
helm33 - 29 minutes ago
Funny you should mention the noise. I took a tour of their
charging facility, and the fleet manager noted the busses were
originally too quiet. They went to the toy store, bought some
toy trucks and rigged that growling solution from the truck
noise makers.