Hybrid electric bus

Types of hybrid vehicle drivetrain

A hybrid electric bus may have either a parallel powertrain (e.g. Volvo B5L) or a series powertrain (e.g. some versions of the Alexander Dennis Enviro400).

Plug-in hybrid

The United States Department of Energy (USDOE) has announced the selection of Navistar Corporation for a cost-shared award of up to $10 million to develop, test, and deploy plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV) school buses. The project aims to deploy 60 vehicles for a three-year period in school bus fleets across the nation. The vehicles will be capable of running in either electric-only or hybrid modes and will be recharged from a standard electrical outlet. Because electricity will be their primary fuel, they will consume less petroleum than standard vehicles. To develop the PHEV school bus, Navistar will examine a range of hybrid architectures and evaluate advanced energy storage devices, with the goal of developing a vehicle with a 40-mile (64 km) electric range. Travel beyond the 40-mile (64 km) range will be facilitated by a clean Diesel engine capable of running on renewable fuels. The DOE funding will cover up to half of the project's cost and will be provided over three years, subject to annual appropriations.

Tribrid Bus

Air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions

A report prepared by Purdue University suggests introducing more hybrid Diesel-electric buses and a fuel containing 20% biodiesel (BD20) would further reduce greenhouse emissions and petroleum consumption.

Manufacturers

Current manufacturers of Diesel-electric hybrid buses include Alexander Dennis Limited (ADL), Azure Dynamics Corporation, Ebus, Eletra (Brazil), New Flyer Industries, Tata, (India), Gillig, Motor Coach Industries, Orion Bus Industries, North American Bus Industries, Daimler AG's Mitsubishi Fuso, MAN, Designline, BAE Systems, Volvo Buses, Wrightbus, Castrosua, Tata Hispano and many more.

In 2006, Nova Bus, which had previously marketed the RTS hybrid before that model was discontinued, added a Diesel-electric hybrid option for its LFS series. as well

In the United Kingdom, Wrightbus has introduced a development of the London "Double-Decker", a new interpretation of the traditional red buses that are a feature of the extreme traffic density in London. The Wright Pulsar Gemini HEV bus uses a small Diesel engine with electric storage through a lithium ion battery pack. The use of a 1.9-litre Diesel instead of the typical 7.0-litre engine in a traditional bus demonstrates the possible advantages of serial hybrids in extremely traffic-dense environments. Based on a London test cycle, a reduction in CO₂ emissions of 31% and fuel savings in the range of 40% have been demonstrated, compared with a modern "Euro-4" compliant bus.

Also in 2005 General Electric introduced its hybrid electric gear shifters on the market. Toyota claims to have started with the Coaster Hybrid Bus in 1997 on the Japanese market. In May 2003 General Motors started to tour with hybrid electric buses developed together with Allison. Several hundreds of those buses have entered into daily operation in the U.S. The Blue Ribbon City Hybrid bus was presented by Hino, a Toyota affiliate, in January 2005. Mitsubishi Fuso have developed a Diesel engine hybrid bus using lithium batteries in 2002, and this model has since seen limited service in several Japanese cities.

Since 1999, Hybrid electric buses with gas turbine generators have been developed by several manufacturers in the US and New Zealand, with the most successful design being the buses made by Designline of New Zealand. The first model went into commercial service in Christchurch (NZ) since 1999, and later models were sold for daily service in Tokyo, Auckland (NZ), Hong Kong, and Newcastle upon Tyne (UK).

New Flyer, Gillig, North American Bus Industries, and Nova Bus produce hybrid electric buses using either BAE System's HybriDrive, or Allison Transmission GM's electric drive system.

The Whispering Wheel bus is another HEV.

List of former hybrid bus manufacturers: ISE Corporations Thundervolt (filed for bankruptcy in 2010) Azure Dynamics (filed for bankruptcy in 2012)

Conversions

Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technologies (HEVT) makes conversions of new and used vehicles (aftermarket and retrofit conversions), from combustion buses and conventional hybrid electric buses into plug-in buses.

List of transit authorities using hybrid electric buses

Transit authorities that use hybrid electric buses:

United States

Federal funding generally comes from the federal Diesel Emissions Reduction Act.

Canada

China

Hong Kong

India

Iran

Japan

Philippines

Singapore

Germany

Hungary

Norway

UK

The Green Bus Fund is a fund which is supporting bus companies and local authorities in the UK to help them buy new electric buses.:

Spain

Sweden

Other European Countries

Other countries