>>1524791The air-con is a non issue, you are never discharging your bus so far on a planned run that the extra load of air con running on a hot day is going to be an issue. For example, my busses (pic related) charge at the end of each 43km run, but they have about 120kms of battery capacity. So if there is s fault in the charger that stops it being used, or there is a service delay and the bus comes in late and can only charge for a couple of minutes before heading out on its next run, it's not a problem at all. Likewise, in the event of a total failure of the one fast charger we have in operation, the busses go out for morning peak, do 2 runs (about 3.5 hours work) each, come back to the depot and charge off the depot chargers during the day then hit the road again for the afternoon peak. It's far from ideal, we do like them to be running all day, but it's not the end of the world.
I dont really see this as a negative for the battery electric bus, since youd have the same problem if you had a failure of overhead powerlines but the trolley would have less range. Also trolleys have the added problem of their poles coming off-wire and the driver having to go play in traffic to put it back on.
I do wonder if a lot of autists have a problem with battery busses because they dont have to follow overhead wires, therefore their path can be unpredictable.
Sorry about the picture I thought I had better ones. This pic shows a prototype charging arm in operation. The finished one is much tidier.
