Electric coach (long distance bus) services outside Scotland

[johncrossley]

Are there any electric coach (long distance/intercity bus) services outside Scotland?

 

[Topological]

I noted National Express were experimenting. This article is from 7 March 2024 Electric Coach Stansted to London

National Express has today unveiled a first-of-its-kind electric coach which will operate on high-frequency airport services between Stansted and London from next week.

The UK’s largest scheduled coach operator is the first in the country to trial Yutong’s brand-new state-of-the-art GTe14 model, which will be in service for four weeks. It follows a trial in 2020 where National Express tested Yutong’s previous TCe12 model on the A9 service between Stansted and Stratford.

In partnership with Stansted Airport, National Express unveiled the UK’s newest, biggest, and most spacious electric coach to date at an exclusive preview event at the airport this morning, ahead of its debut journey with the first lucky customers onboard from next week.

That said, I cannot find many references to National Express having expanded to other routes. Their corporate environment page says they will be 0-emission by 2050, but only talks about their low emission Lavante coaches.

 

[nwales58]

I saw some publicity about a Flixbus Lisbon-Porto service a while ago. Quick web search throws up

FlixBus passa a operar rota Lisboa-Porto em autocarro 100% elétrico

A alemã FlixBus vai passar a operar a rota Lisboa-Porto com um autocarro 100% elétrico. O autocarro da marca Yutong tem autonomia para cerca de 400 km, e irá realizar duas viagens por dia, uma em cada sentido, sete dias por semana. Com a operação programada, este autocarro 100% elétrico vai...

www.flixbus.pt

which mentions one return trip per day so looks like a demonstrator rather than a real fleet so far. 6-8h Charge time is mentioned as a limitation.

Bear in mind that in mainland Europe coach-type vehicles often operate what we would consider to be bus services.

 

[riceuten]

I saw some publicity about a Flixbus Lisbon-Porto service a while ago. Quick web search throws up

FlixBus passa a operar rota Lisboa-Porto em autocarro 100% elétrico

A alemã FlixBus vai passar a operar a rota Lisboa-Porto com um autocarro 100% elétrico. O autocarro da marca Yutong tem autonomia para cerca de 400 km, e irá realizar duas viagens por dia, uma em cada sentido, sete dias por semana. Com a operação programada, este autocarro 100% elétrico vai...

www.flixbus.pt

which mentions one return trip per day so looks like a demonstrator rather than a real fleet so far. 6-8h Charge time is mentioned as a limitation.

Bear in mind that in mainland Europe coach-type vehicles often operate what we would consider to be bus services.

I did read recently about a system where the batteries were charged separately from the coach and could be wheeled on a trolley to the coach from a charging station and the "used" ones taken away for recharging.

 

[Amalie]

I would frankly be more shocked if long distance busses were exclusive to Scotland. I’d even wager to say that if you selected a country at random it would more likely have a long distance bus service than not.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I would frankly be more shocked if long distance busses were exclusive to Scotland. I’d even wager to say that if you selected a country at random it would more likely have a long distance bus service than not.

It's specifically asking about electric ones, which are not common yet.

Scotland has a much stronger mid-long distance coach service than the rest of the UK because of the historically (and still in some cases) poor rail service, which probably makes it a good place to start with these.

 

[Amalie]

It's specifically asking about electric ones, which are not common yet.

Scotland has a much stronger mid-long distance coach service than the rest of the UK because of the historically (and still in some cases) poor rail service, which probably makes it a good place to start with these.

Ah my bad, apologies. I was so used to reading electric in context to trains that I forgot that busses, well long distance coaches…aren’t.

But to add to the discussion, it seems that China has a few long distance bus routes powered by electric busses, which isn’t a surprise given that a large portion of their cars are electric these days.

 

[dutchflyer]

Was a bit unvoluntarily for one day in Shanghai/China (NO visum needed!- due to rerouting to get out of THailand back home) last week and about any riding bus there is already electric or seems to be so. Also managed to visit one kind of coach/longer distance bus station (no idea how far out buses ran from there-as all main connections are by train anyway) which also had a proportion of electrics.
I vaguely remember that here in NL=Nederland now last year there was some kind of try-out or experiment for what we call ´coach´ (bus on hire for daytours) here to get electric. That might be partly comparable in the distance covered.

 

[johncrossley]

Urban services are the easiest to electrify (frequent stops and low speeds) but the Netherlands has also electrified a lot of quite long inter-urban/regional bus services. In the Netherlands there are quite a few coach-like services where there is no direct train service, particularly in the north of the country. For example, Groningen to Emmen, and Alkmaar to Leeuwarden. Given the Netherlands has already made good progress in electrifying regional services, has any consideration been made regarding the electrification of these sorts of routes?

In Ireland there are a lot of inter-urban and regional routes operated by coaches that would use normal buses in other countries. As a result, Ireland might also be one of the first countries to use electric coaches.

 

[Jups]

For the Groningen-Emmen route and all coach services from Groningen. Electrification has started with Yutong U15 buses, which come with a major accessibility improvement as they are low-floor. I know these buses run in other areas of the Netherlands too, but not if they're also used for coach service.

 

[johncrossley]

For the Groningen-Emmen route and all coach services from Groningen. Electrification has started with Yutong U15 buses, which come with a major accessibility improvement as they are low-floor. I know these buses run in other areas of the Netherlands too, but not if they're also used for coach service.

Thanks for this information. However, it looks like they've converted the service to standard bus, even if the seats are coach-like. The old Setra vehicles are sort of a midway between bus and coach in UK terminology. The Van Hool Astromega is definitely a proper coach.

 

[DanielB]

In the Netherlands there are quite a few coach-like services where there is no direct train service, particularly in the north of the country. For example, Groningen to Emmen, and Alkmaar to Leeuwarden. Given the Netherlands has already made good progress in electrifying regional services, has any consideration been made regarding the electrification of these sorts of routes?

Arriva has recently ordered the Yutong IC13 for their Brabantliner services from Breda/Oosterhout to Utrecht, that will be the first real coach services with electric buses.
Though there are several long distance services with electric buses. Those are not really coach services however, but more routes used on overlapping sections by passengers.

And a while ago the first electric rail replacement bus was introduced.

 

[johncrossley]

Arriva has recently ordered the Yutong IC13 for their Brabantliner services from Breda/Oosterhout to Utrecht, that will be the first real coach services with electric buses.

That will be interesting. Does any manufacturer other than Yutong make electric coaches? The ones in Scotland are also Yutong.

 

[DanielB]

Mercedes-Benz has the eIntouro, though they class it as intercity bus instead of coach (though the diesel version is used on several coach like services in the Netherlands).

But yeah, Yutong is fast becoming huge in Europe: one year ago there were zero Yutong buses in the Netherlands' public transport, today Keolis and Transdev have large fleets (with more coming for Transdev) and Arriva has ordered a substantial amount of Yutong buses. EBS is the only operator with no Yutong buses, but has a massive BYD fleet.

The first electric coaches for rail replacement in the Netherlands also are Yutong coaches.

 

[N1]

That will be interesting. Does any manufacturer other than Yutong make electric coaches? The ones in Scotland are also Yutong.

Scania, Man, Higer and King Long all do them, although they are all very recent. Not sure which would be available in right hand drive. Yutong definitely market leader.

 

[AdamWW]

I think Flixbus trialled an electric coach service between Newport and London.
Perhaps Cardiff was a bit too far for the batteries...

 

[johncrossley]

For the Groningen-Emmen route and all coach services from Groningen. Electrification has started with Yutong U15 buses, which come with a major accessibility improvement as they are low-floor. I know these buses run in other areas of the Netherlands too, but not if they're also used for coach service.

I've now been on these Yutong express buses on the 309 Groningen to Assen and 304 Groningen to Drachten and I was very impressed. I originally had reservations because they have replaced a coach with a normal bus, albeit with coach style seats, but it works well in my opinion. Obviously electric means it is quiet and the acceleration is superb, so probably saves a little time compared to the old coaches. This is particularly noticeable on the 304 because it leaves the A7 motorway at several junctions and so needs to accelerate on the slip road to join the A7 again. The Qliner motorway routes in this region are allowed to go at 100 km/h whereas most buses in the Netherlands are restricted to 80 km/h.

 

[Jups]

Glad to hear you liked them. In my opinion it combines the comfort and facilities of regular coaches with low floor accessibility. It's the best of both worlds for a public transport bus service

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Jun 2026 ==

The first electric coaches for rail replacement in the Netherlands also are Yutong coaches.

I have also been in one of these coaches when there was a service shutdown on my route and they had plug sockets if I remember correctly. They're still more comfortable than the U15's but that is to be expected.

 

[Thames99]

I think there are some electric coaches from London to Stansted, aren’t there?