G. David Felt
Staff Writer Alternative Energy - www.CheersandGears.com

 

 

The King County Metro mass transit division has decided to work with manufacture Proterra, Inc., a Burlingame California based company in testing pure battery powered electric buses on the hills of Seattle. These buses get 23 miles per charge and recharge in 10 min. These three buses will be deployed on heavy use city routes. Metro will be evaluating the cost savings from using EV buses. This testing will take 1 year and be done over the 2016 calendar year. Metro as well as Proterra is committed to having the greenest bus fleet in the world.

 

Full Story is found here.

That's actually pretty good! 23 miles is probably double the length of a inner-metro bus route, so put a charging station at each end of the route and it should be fine.

That's actually pretty good! 23 miles is probably double the length of a inner-metro bus route, so put a charging station at each end of the route and it should be fine.

So Route 226 and 241 both start and end at mass transit centers. Route 226 has 50 stops and is a grand total of 14 miles. Route 241 has 25 stops and is a grand total of 16.8 miles. Both Transit centers have chargers for these buses, so they will run the route and then charge up again, then run the route again. Should be good for minimal disruption.

 

I do wonder how heating and AC depending on the season will affect the battery packs.

I can't bring up the article, those are the routes being tested? It sounded like they were inside the city routes.

I can't bring up the article, those are the routes being tested? It sounded like they were inside the city routes.

Yes to quote the original story,

 

"When operational, the first three buses will likely be deployed on routes 241 and 226 on the Eastside initially, because that is where their charging station is, said Metro spokeswoman Rochelle Ogershok."

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2015/11/king-county-metro-starts-testing-100-electric.html

 

Here is the link for you also.

Update on this, not only have these electric buses proven to be more reliable, much less maintenance but also longer life between DC quick charges. Metro has decided rather than Diesel Bio Buses, they are now going forward with 6 more of these electric buses as they start to replace the full diesel inner city bus fleet with electric buses and use CNG busses for the express long distance drives.

 

Full story here:

 

http://www.kingcounty.gov/elected/executive/constantine/News/release/2016/February/17-battery-bus-launch.aspx

 

Per the article, this purchase brings their inner city bus fleet to 70% pure electric or hybrid electric buses.

The biggest thing for me is NO DIESEL SMELL!  I swear... the buses in Pittsburgh pump the diesel exhaust directly into the passenger cabin.

Update, With the Proterra 400, 500 & 600 mile EV buses having been successful and with King County having finished testing of 9 EV buses on inner city routes, King County just signed with multiple EV bus companies to buy 100 EV Buses for delivery by 2020.

This will put many of the 23 mile fast charge buses on inner city streets retiring diesel and hybrid buses and using the Proterra long range buses to move between major cities from bus hub to bus hub with Fast recharging stations at both ends.

Seattle will in the short term have the largest EV bus fleet in the nation. The Federal Transit Administration is willing to cover 80% of the cost to have the county retire diesel and Hybrids and move to pure EV buses. King County is projecting about 30 million to be spent on charging systems and their cost of the buses.

The battery buses are about $220,000 cheaper than Trolley buses and you do not have the cost of overhead wires and maintenance of the Trolly system. This will clean up the sky's and help to quiet the neighborhood runs as well as inner city runs removing partical pollution and noise.

This is a drop in the bucket as King County Metro has over 1400 buses, but it is a start and will help to move the county to cleaner lower maintenance buses reducing costs to the tax payer and giving the riders a quieter, cleaner ride.

Since 2000 King county has had a mandate to have the cleanest fleet in the nation by using Hybrid buses. EV buses will help them push past their 70% Hybrid / CNG bus fleet as they hope to be 100% by 2025 or later.

The announcement by King County Metro was released tonight by the Seattle times.

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/coming-soon-to-a-transit-route-near-you-more-battery-powered-electric-buses/

This story covers most details but also does state that Tuesday morning King County will hold a press media meeting.