Bornin1980s
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I think I have picked up hints in the past that they intended to concentrate expansion on Larbert. How far is Larbert from Falkirk?
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Alexander Dennis future - announcement today
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Tom Gallacher
Member
2 miles as the crow flies, 3 miles by road. I'm assuming you mean how far is it from the ADL Larbert place to the present factory which is at Camelon.
Bornin1980s
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Yes, how far is that?
You do know that Google Maps exists for this type of thing?
But just to save you the effort of doing it yourself, it's 3.6 miles...
Google Maps
Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
maps.app.goo.gl
Yup discussed on this thread which is now two pages back so easily missed:
Tom Gallacher
Member
Buses for a Scottish operator, funded by the Scottish government, bodied by a company with it's head office in Scotland and not one penny of this will benefit the Scottish economy.
Good for Yorkshire! No doubt the Lothian order will be built at Scarborough and all Yutongs are completed in Yorkshire too.
Tom Gallacher
Member
You've already taken most of our money from North Sea oil and you regularly use the excess power that we generate from all our wind farms (whilst we pay more for our electricity than down south) so I guess taking our money to build buses is just to be expected. And as for Yutongs being "completed in Yorkshire" I don't think attaching a few peripheral items to an already almost complete bus is anything to shout about.
Let's see how long Scarborough lasts when the workers there grow a set of balls and start demanding the same pay rates that the workers at Camelon were on. ADL will no longer have them over a barrel.
The Evora's seem rock solid but the BZLs were late and had lots of issues. I seem to remember chat of EvoTors being on order which haven't materialised?
So it looks like it could be a factor but I can only hypothesise.
Gloster
Veteran Member
Guildford had two large buildings, one was more a foundry and welding building making the chassis frame, the other was chassis assembly (adding all the wiring, pipes, suspension, engines etc).
The assembly building had an open day 7 years ago which was really interesting.
Popular open day at Alexander Dennis in Guildford raises £1,600 for charities | Alexander Dennis
An estimated 3,000 people attended the open day at the Alexander Dennis bus chassis factory in Guildford on Saturday 11th May. The opportunity to look behind the scenes at Britain’s biggest bus manufacturer was enthusiastically embraced by local residents as well as visitors from as far afield...www.alexander-dennis.com
I think some office and sales staff subsequently moved to Farnborough
I would presume that the value of the site influenced the withdrawal from Guildford: it is strategically placed between the A3 and the university. It is now a business park and it seems that not a trace of Dennis Bros. is left, not even a road name: philistines!
Snow1964
Established Member
Dennis moved out of the Woodborough Road site in 1990
It operated from a new site at Slyfield (off a road called North Moors, called Denis Way) so ADL location wasn't prime city centre real estate
Clearly Camelon was influenced by the strong union ideology in Scotland, not prevalent in Scarborough.
Yotongs are basically a shell when they arrive in the UK minus seats, fire suppression systems. PIS etc some of which I don't think you could describe as 'peripheral'.
Dwarfer1979
Member
Pelican say it is about 40% of the value of the vehicle is fitted after the base vehicles arrive in the UK, not as good as buying from ADL or Wrightbus where most of the value stays in the UK but probably somewhat more than would accrue from some of the European manufacturers. That level of UK content is probably why Yutong are so much more acceptable in the UK market compared to some of the other non-European suppliers as it allows a layout and fittings more suited to the requirements of the local market than fitting on a high volume production line on the other side of the world.
Whilst the order size would probably be sufficient I wonder whether it would be realistic to develop an entirely new product from the ground up like this within the timescales necessary for the funding - I know ZEBRA schemes in England came with timescales for when vehicles must be ordered and enter service by specific dates and whilst there may have been some ability to slide if there are delays with infrastructure installation you probably wouldn't be successful with the initial bid if your vehicle supplier couldn't be certain that they would have built anything at all by the required deadline.
Bornin1980s
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Don't the Yutong 'shells' arrive already drivable? If so, is it safe to drive them with no fire suppression?
GusB
Established Member
It's probably too late for that. If AD wanted to build its own in-house electric coach, development should have started a good few years ago; the arrival of the first Yutong electric coach should have been a sign that the market would eventually be heading that way. The company was already working with BYD at that point, so it's not inconceivable that there could have been some joint effort towards developing a coach.
Even Volvo is relatively late to the party with development of an electric coach, but I suspect it will do well with operators who are loyal to Volvo. I think that AD's best bet would be to update the Plaxton range to make it compatible with the BZR chassis and produce a basic model that can either be operated by independents for school contracts, or the likes of Stagecoach for interurban services - ie, something that generates a reasonable amount of volume. Of course, it would have to be competitive with Yutong on price and that will likely be a huge stumbling block.
Cesarcollie
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Probably - fire suppression isn’t a standard feature on buses/coaches anyway - it’s generally an optional extra.
Dwarfer1979
Member
That was pretty much my point, it takes far longer to develop a coach than would be realistic for the timescales that the funding had available and probably as you suggest as it is likely to be a couple of years to get it deployed probably too long for Ember to wait on even if they could have guaranteed sufficient volume at the right time. There wasn't really a chassis available for ADL to base their product on previously and having decided to "pause" their coach range development/production a couple of years ago once those suppliers start to appear there is a lot of investment required to develop a product from the ground up. I suspect there were already cracks showing in the relationship with BYD by the time a viable electric coach market started to appear that may have meant there wasn't the willingness to do so from both parties.
The real issue is that coaches are a pretty niche market in any one place, there just isn't the volume to support the costs of developing the technologies needed to make a working product. That is really why most coaches these days are based on pretty global platforms, maybe with local modifications but identifiably related.
I'm not sure you could say Volvo or anyone else is late to the party yet, there is one supplier with two options and except for Ember the electric models aren't selling in bulk - Yutong have done very well with their diesel coaches but the only special thing about those really is their delivery timescales being much shorter than others at the moment. Even Yutong don't have an electric coach product that can fulfil the needs of the majority of coach operators yet, at least with infrastructure as it stands (even government invests in public PSV chargers in places where coaches can park suddenly an electric coach becomes more viable for more work) - Ember have managed to produce a solution but I suspect they use more coaches to achieve it than an operator of diesel vehicles would and certainly in the early days their timetables seemed more designed around the requirements of the electric coaches than simply the needs of passengers (though as they build volume that is hidden by the number of vehicles used but it is a model somewhat reliant on government grants to assist in spreading/reducing the cost of buying vehicles since you need more than you otherwise would).
I don't think Yutong are actually substantially cheaper than their competitors, slightly possibly but not so much that other considerations aren't more important as few operators buy vehicles purely on price as these are very expensive assets that last 15-20 years. Their success came from having an electric model available early that was better than many of their competitors at the time (so early adopters have little reason to feel the need to look at other options), selected an excellent dealer who is well regarded and provides excellent support (again a reason for loyalty as any issues are dealt with quickly and efficiently) and because they have very big factories they have relatively short delivery timescales, even with the distances involved, which mean that if you need something quickly they are able to meet your needs and then the previous two factors mentioned kick in once you experience them.
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