COMMENT: Electric coach – the pumpkin waiting for a fairy godmother
The panel discussion about the future for coach – covered in our 29 November magazine – proved a worthwhile diversion from the metal on show at Euro Bus Expo.
The premise was to ask ‘are we there yet?’ and I think the conclusion was that we aren’t. Where we are is about 20 miles from a roundabout, with no idea which road is closed or whether a bypass has been built. And in that uncertain journey, operators are justifiably sticking with the paper road map. It’s really not good enough.
Continuing the analogy, Governments worldwide have largely named the destination and ETA, and left it to private enterprise to create the roads. Well, it worked with emissions, didn’t it? Legislate for lower emissions and, bit by bit, manufacturers redesign engines to hit your targets. It created insanely complex engines and exhaust pipes, but in parallel, it led to long service intervals and maintained reliability, pretty much.
This time around, the pressure isn’t on the motor and driveline. It’s on batteries and the means to charge them, and we’re finding out just how unprepared governments worldwide are to uphold their end of the deal. The National Grid needs billions in investment just to connect us to the admirable amount of renewables capacity energy companies have created, and are still creating. And still we have no plan for coach opportunity charging or any idea how we pay for cabling to depots.
Of all the road maps, these are the most important yet it appears that the UK government will allow the wire-installers to limp along at their own pace and place no pressure on motorway services (or anyone else) to provide for a mid-journey top-up.
Electric coaches exist and as lithium plunges in price while battery production volume soars, they will very soon provide the TCO parity coach operators want. New battery technologies are on their way which promise to massively increase battery capacity and reduce their weight. In this respect, governments have created the inevitability in which markets will invest.
But if this Government’s grand design for the green transport economy is to become a reality, it needs a leg-up to get there. Our superb bus manufacturers, in the UK and Europe, have risen to the challenge for bus because they’re practical, and operators want them. Electric coaches aren’t a technical challenge, but a practical one; if operators can’t get good grid connections, can’t afford to pay for them, see no top-ups available on the charging infrastructure, and haven’t got a ZEBRA fund to incentivise them to buy electric coaches, nobody is going to make electric coaches.