First Victoria-built electric bus gets thumbs up from bus expert

The Driven

What is understood to be the first electric bus built in Victoria has been given the expert review treatment by bus expert Paul Aldridge, and he is giving it the thumbs up.

Bought by public transport provider Transdev to use in a 12-month trial in Melbourne that will end in January 2021, the bus in question has been built by leading Australian bus maker Volgren, the culmination of a five-year project to create an electric bus for the Australian market.

The result is a “route bus” Volgren Optimus body on a Chinese BYD DR9A 860 (K9) chassis, with 16 battery packs adding up to 324kWh capacity, giving it around 300km and using a little under 1kW of power per kilometre driven.

Aldridge, who reviewed the Volgren-BYD bus on behalf of Australasian Bus and Coach (ABC), says he believes Volgren has done a really good job, and the upshot of the silent electric drivetrain will be a better experience for the driver (no doubt as well as the passengers).

“It’s so quiet,” he says in the review video which you can view on the ABC company’s website. “As a driver, if you’re spending a week in here doing your route service, you’d have to be less fatigued at the end of the week.”

“Just not having all those extra sounds that a diesel motor has, that must have some impact on the driver,” he says.

But the real kudos he says goes to Transdev for taking the bus on for trial on one of Melbourne’s busiest thoroughfares.

To read the full version of this story – and view the photo gallery – on RenewEconomy’s electric vehicle dedicated site, The Driven, click here…

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