Linto63 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 09, 2022 12:15 pm
While some may like to think that we are taking up the use of electric traction from where we left off with trolleybuses in the 1950s, it is a totally different game. Yes they are both powered by electricity, but that's is where the similarity stops.
Comments like this beg a little education, like the bizarre dichotomy I constantly see in the industry that there are "trolley buses" and "electric buses" as if they're two completely different things. The Wellington NZ controversy a few years back saw this mash at its hilarious finest when the line being pumped was that they're "getting rid of trolleybuses and replacing them with electric buses". It has its parallel in the tram vs light rail nonsense and is really no more than marketing puffery trying to sell something new, rather than anything of technical substance.
I've dug up two pages from European manufacturers of electric buses that demonstrate that there is a single, uniform, identical piece of tech called an electric bus. That's a constant. What varies is how the power to it is supplied and that goes across a wide spectrum from different forms of overhead contact with an external source to an autonomous on-board supply that has to be refreshed by an external charge, or even charged by an on-board diesel motor or fuel cell. The original trolleybus that relied entirely on being in contact with wires is no longer on the market, so even at that end of the spectrum there's a hybrid dimension.
This page from Hess demonstrates clearly how the manufacturer sees the electric bus as a single piece of technology with a range of power sources. There is a little demo video at the end of each power option.
https://www.hess-ag.ch/services/buses/c ... s.html?L=2
What we might consider a trolleybus they've called a dynamic charging bus. It both drives itself and charges its batteries on the move via wires. In some languages this type of bus with in-motion charging is called a Dynamic Electric Bus as it can always keep moving. What we would call a battery electric bus they would call a Static Electric Bus. That is, it has to stop in order to recharge, either by opportunity charging en route or overnight at a depot. Going down the Hess list of power options, the Brisbane "Metro" buses will be a combination of opportunity (at termini) and plug (overnight) charging.
The other page here is a brochure from Skoda that shows cutaways and notes on componentry that demonstrate the uniform basic technology of all electric buses.
https://www.skoda.cz/admin/wp-content/u ... -buses.pdf
Because the brochure is a little out of date it doesn't show the type of battery and hybrid electric bus that we have here, which they also manufacture off the same basic platform. They also have similar types of power options on their trams. These options exist because different operations have different requirements. All have their pluses and minuses, including the battery-electric bus which has a weight and passenger capacity (because of weight) disadvantage, for example. It's impossible to say that one type is best. They all offer different types of benefits for different operating environments.
Really anybody who talks about trolleybuses as some separate item of technology has no understanding of electric bus technology or the industry. The battery-electric bus has directly evolved from the trolleybus and is part of the same spectrum of power supply options. China manufactures trolleybuses too, in case somebody thinks they've created something different. They got the technology from Europe, among everything else they've pinched from elsewhere and claimed as their own. Just clearing up a few misconceptions.