"Transport Minister Brent Mickelberg announced up to 630 new buses would hit the state’s roads, the first of which would be delivered in the 2027-28 financial year.
All the buses would be diesel, Mickelberg said, closing the door on zero-emissions technology."
Personally I support this. I have always been skeptical of Electric buses due to their infancy and believe that Diesel Buses are more flexible. They don’t require the installation of expensive power charging facilities at bus depots, can go further, take less time an energy to refill than EVs take to charge and overall are less complex to maintain. Whilst Electric buses do have their pros, particularly with short distance routes like the Gliders and Spring Hill loop or services like the Brisbane Metro along more established corridors, they are poorly suited for our conditions.
Battery powered buses are particulalrly more prone to overheating during our hot summers and onboard Air Conditioning as well as powering its own cooling system can drain up to 30% of the total battery charge. Its also widely known that battery powered vehicles, specifially heavier vehicles such as trucks and buses at full loads often struggle to get up hilly roads when powered by batteries. It also doesnt help the typical electric bus is 4 tonnes heavier than the standard Diesel bus.
Well it is true, Diesel buses still have huge emissions problems, they are far more efficient and durable in the long run than Electric Buses and the last thing we would want from an electric bus program are the same issues that plagued the Natural Gas Powered ones Brisbane has trialed with in the past. Diesel always has and always will be the superior form of fuel for transporting mass amounts of people by road.
This isn’t true. Diesel engines are way more complicated to maintain than electric engines.
If you’re saying stuff like this it’s pretty clear that you already have an entrenched ideological belief that diesel is inherently better. Most of the issues you’ve identified are only true of older Electric Bus technology. Newer electric buses are capable of spending a whole day on the road in one charge. They are often also equiped with fast charging.
Not good if the power goes out though. There is a higher chance of a power outage then there is of us running out of fuel. Could lower our chance of running out of fuel if we actually refined our own oil.
I think long term we are better off either developing a bio fuel or reinstating trolleybuses. Could even go back to the old horse and cart, that always another option and it’s worked for thousands of years.
Also there nothing ideological about my opinion. I just think investing mass amounts in Electric buses without preparing the depots to accommodate them is a major problem and a rather expensive problem. Most electric buses also only last 12 years on the road. Likewise, Diesel buses can last up to 30 years on the road if you push out their service life. That’s double the service life.
How do you think the diesel pumps work without power? I know in theory the diesel can be stored under pressure, but do you really think the pumps at the bus depots are powerless?
I think sometimes your input is useful and collaborative but then sometimes you start threads like this where it seems like trolling.
It’s really hard to tell when your input is sincere. On the chance this is sincere I’ll note that your comments are factually incorrect on the maturity of the technology, the stability, and the advantages.
Whatever, I disagree with electric buses as a universal solution for everything. Don’t get me wrong they have their place, like with Brisbane Metro where they have the facilities but you can’t just copy and paste and replicate across the entire bus network.
^ You can though. A bus is a bus - this delivers all the same basic capabilities as an ICE version but is cleaner, cheaper to operate and also easier to make accessible given how the traction equipment works.
An urban bus anywhere in Queensland is perfectly capable of being electric, we already have something like 140-150 of the things on the road.
Nobody is talking about replacing long distance coaches yet, and even if they were these are not the subject of government procurement in QLD.
There was also no commitment to replacing the entire fleet (urban, school or otherwise) by any given date.
I blame the ALP for not advancing things sufficiently - not just this but other things such as LR south of Burleigh. That does not excuse the current mob from doing stupid stuff.
Most Chinese cities have had 100% electric buses for years. The Australian attitude that they are new-fangled and I don’t trust them is an indicator of backwards and inflexible thinking.
I will note that the Yanks are legitimately having trouble with their electric bus rollouts, but that’s mostly because they have buy-American requirements and their domestic electric buses aren’t value-for-money yet.
But we don’t really have the same constraints so we shouldn’t have the same problems. We typically want to do final assembly and fit-out here, but that’s not the high tech bit.
Once the range and VFM is there, urban buses are a great use case for EVs. It’s a heavy vehicle that does lots of stop start, so the combo of huge low speed torque, regenerative braking, simpler mechanicals and quieter running is a big winner.
I would argue that normal bus routes are actually even better use cases than the Metro(bus), since they are going through built up areas where noise and pollution matter more and do fewer kilometres at lower speed, so would likely be able to run all day without recharging.