Hybrid and Electric Buses and Taxis : Forecasts, Opportunities, Players

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1 around 300 miles range and that will be affordably achievable near the end of the coming decade even with some improvement of pricing. It will not be achieved simply by the hoped-for three-times improvement in battery cost and energy density. That may well not happen. It will be achieved by lots of little things. Welcome back to the real world. Buses are in the lead Urban buses lie in contrast to all this, primarily because they are adopting new technology much more rapidly and they do not need long range. We have seen a blistering rate of change from large conventional engines to hybrids with increasingly specialist engines designed to purpose. In only a few years, the battery for the hybrid bus has progressed from nickel metal hydride to lithium-ion to none at all - a supercapacitor doing the job in the successful Lion urban bus of MAN in Germany. Fig MAN Lion urban bus with supercapacitors and no traction battery Source: MAN Bombardier and many Chinese manufacturers only make pure-electric buses, seeing the interim hybrid option as something for the history books. Fast charging is commonplace and Bombardier has inductive charging as used in its trams and trains. Buses are close systems so they do not need the standardisation that is delaying inductive charging of cars. Bombardier has a lithium-ion battery tolerant of fast charging so it does not use a supercapacitor. By contrast, the Sinautec pure-electric buses, which have supercapacitors fitted for life and no batteries, are about to be bought in hundreds. This is a step to greater things, not least in China where over 100,000 electric buses a year will eventually be bought as part of the national program. On the other hand, Volvo, despite claiming to have been the world's largest manufacturer of pure-electric buses when it passed 500 pure-electric buses delivered, now favours hybrid urban buses of advanced design. This 38

2 Fig. 2.5 A Volvo hybrid powertrain for buses is shown below Source Volvo New York experience with hybrid buses New York has the world s largest hybrid bus fleet and it mainly employs Daimler and BAE Systems based buses with some DesignLine buses that are the next generation series hybrids with Capstone turbine range extenders. These turbines were not designed for such use and they have a two minute startup time. Nevertheless, after some teething troubles they are working well and they do not need to be retuned to employs biofuels and other alternative fuels. Bladon Jets is developing smaller monoblock (fewer parts, lower cost) turbines specifically as range extenders, initially on a Jaguar sports car and will may appear in taxis and buses later. Hybrid buses tested by NREL on New York s most severe duty cycles achieved up to 45% better fuel economy than diesel buses and 100% improvement compared to natural gas on an energyequivalent basis. The report also said bus drivers liked the increased power output of the hybrid buses, whose electric drive motor offers superior torque to help with acceleration and hill-climbing. Other reports tell of users appreciating the quietness and lack of vibration. Hybrid buses typically generate 5db less noise than pure diesel buses. No special infrastructure needs to be installed and little driver training is involved. New York s hybrid fleet also proved most reliable in the study, with 7,000 miles between road calls, compared to 5,000 miles for natural gas and 4,000 miles for diesel. The BAE Systems HybriDrive series hybrid system performed better than the other propulsion systems, with 10,000 miles between calls, compared to 8,000 miles for CNG and 5,000 miles for diesel. It is possible that these more reliable buses will have longer life in use. Our series hybrid design is especially well suited to urban stop-and-go conditions, said Hank McGlynn, Vice President of Power Systems for BAE Systems in Johnson City, N.Y. The design is 52

3 Table 6.1 Eight projects testing pure electric taxis Location Vehicle Comment Shenzhen China Intended for the Chinese market BYD Auto e6 Jonway A-380 SUV adaptation 30 cars intended to rise to 100 by early Shenzhen Pengcheng Electric Taxi Co Ltd, a joint venture responsible for electric taxi operations which was formed last year by BYD and local bus and taxi operator Shenzhen Bus Group Co Ltd. which is government controlled. This is part of Shenzhen's plan to create a green city by introducing electric vehicles. The electric taxis are more expensive than ordinary taxis that run on gasoline. A BYD e6 taxi is sold at 300,000 yuan ($43,942), three times the price of an ordinary one. The central government is subsidizing the purchase of each taxi to the tune of 60,000 yuan. The Shenzhen government is also drawing up subsidy plans for electric taxis to help develop the new industry. The city plans 24,000 electric vehicles and 12,750 charging stations by The electric taxi operator invested more than 30 million yuan by the end of 2010 to boost output and build charging stations. Due to differences in taxation of electricity vs gasoline, it costs less than 30 yuan for an e6 taxi to run 100 kilometers, vs 60 yuan for a traditional taxi. For BYD, the debut of its e6 taxis may well give its electric vehicle sales a boost. "It's a good idea to make the electric taxi scheme a trial for the coming e6 model, as this can help more people experience the e6 before they decide to buy one," said Xu Feng, a spokeswoman for BYD's electric taxi project. In addition, the city government of Los Angeles in California has reached an agreement with BYD to purchase its electric cars and test its electric buses. This will be produced in China by a joint venture between Zap and electric meter manufacturer Holley Group. Target is top speed of 70 miles per hour, range of up to 186 miles. Pilot production of the ZAP Taxi is underway at ZAP Hangzhou. The partly Chinese ZAP is one of the world's oldest electric vehicle providers, having delivered more than 117,000 vehicles mainly two wheelers - to more than 75 countries since ZAP supplies electric trucks and vans to military, government and corporate fleets and is an innovator of electric motor cycles, scooters and ATVs. The Santa Rosa, California based company offers electric city-speed cars and trucks developing a cost effective high-speed electric car called the ZAP Alias. 138

4 HELPING YOU PROFIT FROM EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES IDTechEx Research guides your strategic business decisions. We provide independent market research, business intelligence and advice on emerging technologies to companies across the value chain. We are technical, impartial and experienced analysts and business leaders. We provide the answers that will help you to drive revenue in a much shorter time frame. Market intelligence reports from IDTechEx appraise the market opportunity, giving detailed forecasts and assess the technologies, competitive landscape, value chain drivers, barriers, case studies and global trends. PRINTED AND THIN FILM TRANSISTORS AND MEMORY IT PROVIDED THE BEST INFORMATION Dow Corning SUPERCAPACITOR / ULTRACAPACITOR STRATEGIES AND EMERGING APPLICATIONS THE REPORT IS EXTREMELY INFORMATIVE AND HELPFUL Major US Chemical Company AREAS OF COVERAGE PRINTED, FLEXIBLE & ORGANIC ELECTRONICS Materials Manufacturing & Processing Displays & Lighting Photovoltaics Sensors Logic & Memory EMERGING MATERIALS & DEVICES Supercapacitors & Batteries Carbon Nanotubes & Graphene Transparent Conductive Films Touch Surfaces, Screens & Haptics Display, Lighting & TFT Technologies New Advanced Materials Smart Packaging E-MOBILITY: HYBRID, ELECTRIC & FUEL CELL VEHICLES Land Vehicles Water Vehicles Aircraft Components Infrastructure ENERGY HARVESTING Technologies Photovoltaics ENERGY STORAGE Supercapacitors Batteries Enabling Materials Vehicles RFID, NFC, RTLS & WSN Passive RFID & NFC Active RFID & Real Time Locating Systems Wireless Sensor Networks, IoT & M2M RFID FORECASTS, PLAYERS AND OPPORTUNITIES THE MOST INSIGHTFUL AND IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS LogicaCMG

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