There are several companies in the BEV Bus biz, among the most prominent are BYD and Proterra. None of them appear to have as good a solution as they'd have using Tesla battery packs and modified power train.
City buses are a great vehicle category for disruption both as pure electrics and with full autonomy. Diesel and Labor are the two biggest operating expenses currently and both would be slashed.
BYD is going with a permanent battery with good range (180 miles) and hoping to fit recharging into the schedule. Proterra started with a small battery and frequent high power recharging from overhead hookups at stations but seems to be offering a larger permanent battery now as well.
The Tesla battery drivetrain solution would be 4 85kWhr battery packs linked to 4 drive motors with the packs popped in on the bottom of the bus with the same architecture as the S platform Tesla. That would give the bus about the same range as BYD plus the ability to swap out battery packs in 3-6 minutes in an automated swap station. The station would have two automated swap systems underneath with bus moving forward after the first 2 for the second 2 battery packs.
Automated pack swapping makes a lot of sense for fleets of buses. A single station could serve a large fleet. Depending on routing and scheduling the fleet would need some excess battery supply but not a 2:1 surplus. There's no issue with pack ownership. If there are multiple commercial customers for the swap station they can program it to keep their battery packs separate.
I suspect BEVcity buses, delivery vans, mini buses, all have a bright future in an age of autonomous vehicles and HyperLoop. They could all use a common system of Tesla style swappable battery packs, and could operate 24/7 without any human intervention.
Both Tesla battery packs and Google style lidar based autonomy sensors are expensive but city buses now cost in the $300k range and electrics are trying for 2X to 3X that. Self-driving BEV buses would save on the order of $150K per year in operating expenses so they could pay off higher capital cost in a reasonable time.
I don't think city buses or other utility vehicles are Tesla's core business but I'd hope some of the relevant companies would come around to seeing the advantages. Tesla's all our patent are belong to you sez they would be open to licensing.
City buses are a great vehicle category for disruption both as pure electrics and with full autonomy. Diesel and Labor are the two biggest operating expenses currently and both would be slashed.
BYD is going with a permanent battery with good range (180 miles) and hoping to fit recharging into the schedule. Proterra started with a small battery and frequent high power recharging from overhead hookups at stations but seems to be offering a larger permanent battery now as well.
The Tesla battery drivetrain solution would be 4 85kWhr battery packs linked to 4 drive motors with the packs popped in on the bottom of the bus with the same architecture as the S platform Tesla. That would give the bus about the same range as BYD plus the ability to swap out battery packs in 3-6 minutes in an automated swap station. The station would have two automated swap systems underneath with bus moving forward after the first 2 for the second 2 battery packs.
Automated pack swapping makes a lot of sense for fleets of buses. A single station could serve a large fleet. Depending on routing and scheduling the fleet would need some excess battery supply but not a 2:1 surplus. There's no issue with pack ownership. If there are multiple commercial customers for the swap station they can program it to keep their battery packs separate.
I suspect BEVcity buses, delivery vans, mini buses, all have a bright future in an age of autonomous vehicles and HyperLoop. They could all use a common system of Tesla style swappable battery packs, and could operate 24/7 without any human intervention.
Both Tesla battery packs and Google style lidar based autonomy sensors are expensive but city buses now cost in the $300k range and electrics are trying for 2X to 3X that. Self-driving BEV buses would save on the order of $150K per year in operating expenses so they could pay off higher capital cost in a reasonable time.
I don't think city buses or other utility vehicles are Tesla's core business but I'd hope some of the relevant companies would come around to seeing the advantages. Tesla's all our patent are belong to you sez they would be open to licensing.
