New fuel to power our cars?

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Zelandeth
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Re: New fuel to power our cars?

Post by Zelandeth »

The refuelling station in Aberdeen is being built in the carpark of a Council Depot. Make of that what you will. It was meant to be finished in "early 2014" but last I heard it was still far from ready.

Just narked I haven't been able to get up there for a shot of one of the buses yet! Apparently they are quite something to drive.

Was well impressed with the driving experience of the Alexander-Dennis Enviro 350h diesel-electric hybrid. Incredible torque off the mark but utterly smooth progress. Only things you had to watch for were the very agressive regenerative braking (apparently a firmware upgrade helped with that) and the fact that when you are stationary they will unlike a bus with a conventional auto box, roll backwards when you release the brakes. That's becoming increasingly common though with buses using robotised manual boxes like the Volvo B12Rs as well though. Gave me a bit of a scare at the top of Market Street though!
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Re: New fuel to power our cars?

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Nottingham is one of the most active cities in the electric bus field. and in its plans for its hackney cabs using city centre ranks to be fully electric or hybrid vehicles.

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I'm no whatsthisbusthen? expert but it looks like another one off the Sutton-in-Elmet production line to me :)

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Re: New fuel to power our cars?

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Nottingham is also one of the Cities to have revived the tram. Nice that they have named them, unless its the driver's name as well :)

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Re: New fuel to power our cars?

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

So whats happening in Milton Keynes? "The Milton Keynes Electric Bus Project" no less.

And it involves wireless transmission of electricity though not quite in the grand scale as envisaged by Nikola Tesla when he constructed this:-

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This is what the Council have to say about the Scheme
The Milton Keynes Electric Bus Project is an innovative approach to charging electric buses to enable the quieter, cleaner future of public transport in Milton Keynes. On Tuesday 25th September 2012 six organisations led by subsidiary of Mitsui & Co Europe signed a five year collaboration agreement committing to the replacement of seven diesel buses with their all-electric counterparts on one of the main bus routes in the city.

Uniquely, the new buses will be able to recharge their batteries wirelessly through the day which means that for the first time, electric buses will be capable of the equivalent load of a diesel bus. The eight electric buses will replace seven diesel buses on the number 7 route in Milton Keynes and will run 7 days a week; ... The route currently transports over 775,000 passengers a year over a total of 450,000 miles.

The buses will charge when power transmitted from a primary coil buried in the road is picked up by a secondary coil on the bus. 10 minutes parked over a coil will replenish two thirds of the energy consumed by the bus’s route. The primary coils will be placed at three locations (Wolverton, Bletchley and in Central Milton Keynes) on the route, and the buses will charge in the layover time at the ends of the route. It is expected that the buses will be in service by the end of January 2014.

The trial is a partnership between:

The Mitsui subsidiary eFleet Integrated Service Ltd
Milton Keynes Council
bus operator Arriva
manufacturer Wrightbus Limited
technology supplier Conductix-Wampfler
Western Power Distribution

The trial will be managed by Mitsui-Arup joint venture MBK Arup Sustainable Projects (MASP)
Any on the spot updates from Keynesians? (or even Newport Paglians at a push!)

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Re: New fuel to power our cars?

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Just found this on a random link.....a wireless recharging electric C1....a 2m 33s report by Katia Moskvitch of the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14183409

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Re: New fuel to power our cars?

Post by CitroJim »

I know the MK Electric busses well Neil, one morning I got stuck behind (I think) seven of them all coming out of their depot in Wolverton all at the same time...

I see them trundling around here most days...
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Re: New fuel to power our cars?

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Nice to see that Wrightbus which supplies the vehicles is a UK Manufacturer based in Northern Ireland, and that an innovative approach is being explored. So Milton Keynes joins Gumi in South Korea, Genoa and Turin in Italy, Utrecht in the Netherlands and Mannheim in Germany in pioneering the wireless recharging approach.

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Re: New fuel to power our cars?

Post by Stickyfinger »

LOL....I always thought that Scalextric had the best idea.....sweeps the road clean as well
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Re: New fuel to power our cars?

Post by Zelandeth »

NewcastleFalcon wrote:Nottingham is one of the most active cities in the electric bus field. and in its plans for its hackney cabs using city centre ranks to be fully electric or hybrid vehicles.

Image

I'm no whatsthisbusthen? expert but it looks like another one off the Sutton-in-Elmet production line to me :)

regards Neil
Can tell you that's an Optare Versa. Interesting to see an electric variant, they're usually powered by the same Cummins units as ADL Enviro 300s I believe. Not bad driving things, but the windscreen tapering towards the bottom rather than the top is downright weird the first time you sit in the driver's seat as is how far you are from the front, and the ride is pretty shocking given the small wheels. Bluebird's ones used on the 727 Airport shuttle can fairly shift too. I'd just always be paranoid about pranging something with the nose.

Wasn't aware of the wireless recharging idea for the buses, quite a clever idea to do that where there's layover.
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Re: New fuel to power our cars?

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

CitroJim wrote:And put a generator on the end of it and sell the surplus back to the national grid...

I see a profit in this, especially if the V6 could be made to run on poo as the Bath bus fleet does now...
This got a mention on another thread but is worth recording here seeing as its another approach to powering our transport needs. The BBC aren't as shy as they used to be in calling a poo a poo! I do think electric power for personal and public transport will win out in the end though.

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Re: New fuel to power our cars?

Post by Zelandeth »

Electric does make a lot of sense for public transport where you have so much stop start driving, especially given how much energy you can harvest back by regenerative braking. Has the side effect of saving massively on brake wear. Think Bluebird were getting something like foir times the usual life out of pads on the E350h hybrids compared to the E300 diesel. Can't remember the fuel figures precisely, but think they were returning around 13mpg, rather than 7-8mpg which they would expect for a normal diesel bus of the same size in urban service.
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Re: New fuel to power our cars?

Post by CitroJim »

Electric also makes no end of sense for those of us who'd rather not gulp down a lungful of diesel fumes when walking to and from the swimming pool..

Our local buses seem to be particularly obnoxious in this respect. Clean they are definitely not either in exhaust or audibly... There's one breed of Optare running around here which generates the most horrendous turbo or transmission whine when it moves off. It's both deafening and most unpleasant so for buses I'm all in favour of them being electric as soon as possible.

Just so long as they make enough noise of a pleasant sort to let you know they are in the vicinity...
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Re: New fuel to power our cars?

Post by Zelandeth »

Biggest issue there Jim is the drive for smaller and smaller engines which then have to work so much harder. Wright Streetlites which have become a common sight in Aberdeen now are dire in that respect as well as they have an incredibly small engine that relies on a massive turbo for any power. Result being a bus that sounds like it's imminently going to explode the moment you start moving.

Still reckon the best sounding bus I've been on in an American import running a Detroit 8V71 power unit and a massively lazy Allison 'box. Not exactly environmentally friendly though...the straight pipes are probably a bit loud for passing pedestrians too...Never actually see so much as a puff of smoke from either exhaust either once we had the injectors refurbished!

Have driven a truck with a 12V71 up front as well which was also rather mad...we may have done a few passes through the tunnel that day...
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Re: New fuel to power our cars?

Post by Hell Razor5543 »

Zelandeth wrote:Biggest issue there Jim is the drive for smaller and smaller engines which then have to work so much harder. Wright Streetlites which have become a common sight in Aberdeen now are dire in that respect as well as they have an incredibly small engine that relies on a massive turbo for any power. Result being a bus that sounds like it's imminently going to explode the moment you start moving.

Still reckon the best sounding bus I've been on in an American import running a Detroit 8V71 power unit and a massively lazy Allison 'box. Not exactly environmentally friendly though...the straight pipes are probably a bit loud for passing pedestrians too...Never actually see so much as a puff of smoke from either exhaust either once we had the injectors refurbished!

Have driven a truck with a 12V71 up front as well which was also rather mad...we may have done a few passes through the tunnel that day...
Did you actually get much further than that tunnel?
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Re: New fuel to power our cars?

Post by Zelandeth »

We went around a few times...

Best one was when someone else in a riced out Corsa with drainpipe exhaust was giving it beans through there. He did rather an impressive doubletake when he was drowned out by a V12 two stroke diesel with twin 6" straight through stacks on! The sound I described as a cross between a 70s F1 car and a Spitfire.

For overall sound (not that I've been in control of), can anyone say Deltic at full chat? ...also not very environmentally friendly, especially when cold!

...Sorry...dragging this massively off topic again aren't I!
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