Concept Volvo Electric Bus to debut in Gothenburg

Johan · Jun 9, 2015

Read today about a concept bus line starting June 15th in my home town of Gothenburg. Some interesting info:
(Volvo used to be a Swedish company based in Gothenburg. It's now a Chinese company but they still have a factory in Gothenburg and a lot of design and development there)

Energy storage system:
Lithium-Ion battery (Water cooled)
Voltage 600 V
Capacity 4 x 19 kWh (comes to 76 kWh accordin to my math)

Charge:
Fast Charge time 6 min/10 km range
Fast Charge power up to 300 kW
Maintenance charging (400 VAC) 4 h/day

Electrical motorOutput, max (kW) 155
Torque (Nm) 400

http://www.goteborgelectricity.se/sites/default/files/content/PDF/volvo_electric_concept_bus_en.pdf

In addition to regen braking, "Recharging also takes place via the mains electricity grid at the two end stops, at Sven Hultins plats (Chalmers) and Teknikgatan (Lindholmen). Recharging takes about six minutes and is more than sufficient for the entire route."

They will have 10 buses on this line, 7 hybrids and 3 fully electric ones.

It seems charging happens from above:

General info:
ElectriCity | Cooperation for Sustainable Public Transport

SwedishAdvocate · Jun 9, 2015

Johan said:
.../ (Volvo used to be a Swedish company based in Gothenburg. It's now a Chinese company but they still have a factory in Gothenburg and a lot of design and development there) /... [My underline.]

That is not true.

What you are referring to here is Volvo Group. Not Volvo Cars. Volvo Group seems to be pretty much a "Swedish company". That is, if you can call being owned (mostly) by a very small bunch of Swedes, a "Swedish company"...

Source:

Largest owners - Largest owners : Volvo Group Global

- - - Updated - - -

Volvo Cars on the other hand, is not only a "Chinese company". Officially it's owned by Geely. But in reality, it is in fact most unfortunately owned by the actual very, very, very undemocratic regime currently in power in China (!)

Johan · Jun 10, 2015

SwedishAdvocate said:
That is not true.

What you are referring to here is Volvo Group. Not Volvo Cars. Volvo Group seems to be pretty much a "Swedish company". That is, if you can call being owned (mostly) by a very small bunch of Swedes, a "Swedish company"...

Source:

Largest owners - Largest owners : Volvo Group Global

- - - Updated - - -

Volvo Cars on the other hand, is not only a "Chinese company". Officially it's owned by Geely. But in reality, it is in fact most unfortunately owned by the actual very, very, very undemocratic regime currently in power in China (!)

Ok you're correct. But was that really the most interesting thing you could think of commenting on? After all this is a forum about electric cars and technology, not politics.

30seconds · Jun 12, 2015

So basically tesla 85 packs plus supercharger would be sufficient to electrify urban bus lines? Fascinating

Johan · Jun 12, 2015

30seconds said:
So basically tesla 85 packs plus supercharger would be sufficient to electrify urban bus lines? Fascinating

This bus route is only about 10 km, calculated by me on google maps.

Jaff · Jun 12, 2015

What's the 0-100 time? (are we going to see Hellcat owners whining about this EV as well?) :wink:

Cool idea...hope it works well enough that we can get them on the road over here!

spottyq · Jun 12, 2015

Thanks for the info, Johan !

I must say I don't really understand why they are so little electric busses in general.
It is the near perfect case for an electric vehicle ! Relatively slow (does not need high continuous power), lots of regular stops (charging), needs lots of torque, long life and high mileage, overnight in a depot where slow charging is possible.
And some reasons why it isn't adapted to ICE : a lot of braking needed, and very frequent idling.

They must be something I am missing that explains why we don't see a widespread adoption of electric busses all over the world…

1208 · Jun 12, 2015

spottyq said:
Thanks for the info, Johan !

I must say I don't really understand why they are so little electric busses in general.
It is the near perfect case for an electric vehicle ! Relatively slow (does not need high continuous power), lots of regular stops (charging), needs lots of torque, long life and high mileage, overnight in a depot where slow charging is possible.
And some reasons why it isn't adapted to ICE : a lot of braking needed, and very frequent idling.

They must be something I am missing that explains why we don't see a widespread adoption of electric busses all over the world…

Agreed! There is no excuse for all buses to not be electric.

The only things I can think of are;

1. In places where busses are owned by the state, the councillors/politicians are usually people without scientific background so they have no interest in the subject of technology and they have a budget and usually they want to spend on stupid vanity projects instead.

2. In places such as the UK which sold off the public busses to private companies, it goes against the greed of the bus companies to purchase new vehicles when they already have working ones.

spottyq · Jun 12, 2015

1208 said:
Agreed! There is no excuse for all buses to not be electric.

The only things I can think of are;

1. In places where busses are owned by the state, the councillors/politicians are usually people without scientific background so they have no interest in the subject of technology and they have a budget and usually they want to spend on stupid vanity projects instead.

2. In places such as the UK which sold off the public busses to private companies, it goes against the greed of the bus companies to purchase new vehicles when they already have working ones.

Politicians I can certainly understand, but private companies ?
I mean, the technology exists since quite a long time now (the Roadster was 2009, and it not like the technology didn't exist before.) Granted, busses have a longer life (in years) than cars, but I can't believe no one had to buy new (or replace an ageing) bus in the last few years.

[Edit:] Also, in the documentation Johan provided a link of, that bus technically can still use diesel… as a space heater. (at least it is using >90% of the energy stored in the fuel that way.) I guess it can be needed in Norway (Edit2: Sweden) !

Johan · Jun 12, 2015

This particular bus is operated in Sweden, but nevertheless, yes, diesel for heating is much better than diesel for propulsion.

The first shorter range EVs in Norway (Think, Reva) came with optional diesel space heaters for the winter, which is perfectly reasonable (but it does give off a nasty smell).

Anyway, I'm excited about this bus line and for sure I'll bring my two oldest sons for a ride on it when we visit my home town this summer.

spottyq · Jun 13, 2015

Johan said:
(snip)
Anyway, I'm excited about this bus line and for sure I'll bring my two oldest sons for a ride on it when we visit my home town this summer.

Oh please do ! When you are at it, could you possibly also try to ask the bus driver what he thinks of it ?

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