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I very much doubt any company will be looking to purchase full price coaches or even buses without funding as the prices are still extremely high. A GTe14 your looking at close to £450k on its own double the price of a diesel version.
Electric cars are now not much more expensive than their petrol equivalents, so why hasn't the same happened with electric buses? Until electric buses can be bought without a massive premium the likelihood of Ember operating in England must be remote.
But why does the bus need to go back to the depot between every E20 run? With the distances they are covering on other journeys, they ought to be able to do several journeys between Glasgow and Edinburgh airport without needing to recharge.
Feels like having a couple of fleet cars to ferry drivers backwards and forwards, or have them stepping back in Glasgow and taking their break there, might be easier and cheaper solutions.
Feels like having a couple of fleet cars to ferry drivers backwards and forwards, or have them stepping back in Glasgow and taking their break there, might be easier and cheaper solutions.
There's also the fact that Edinburgh Airport want the coaches to be on stand for as short a time as possible. When travelling towards where, my coach waited at a stop shortly before, presumably to stay within the limits they're allowed.
I very much doubt any company will be looking to purchase full price coaches or even buses without funding as the prices are still extremely high. A GTe14 your looking at close to £450k on its own double the price of a diesel version.
Obviously there's more to it as capital is expensive too, and Ember has a vast and fairly costly charging network (which in turn limits where the coaches can operate and the flexibility with which they can). But that's a prepayment against the cost of future fuel bills something in the region of the cost of 25,000 gallons of diesel. That's not bad!
Very wooly - but if the argument is to recover fuel duty, buses still paid tax on diesel, so why continue to be exempt when everyone else takes a hit?
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I’ve just experienced Ember’s ‘joined up’ network and I’m totally impressed! Had a ticket from Glasgow to Aberdeen recently there was a 1hr 5m change at Dundee, so had a swift visit to the V&A Dundee adjacent before my connection.
The return journey on E1 should have been the same in reverse but with a 20min connection. Things started badly in Aberdeen, where the service from Bridge of Don just up the road was already 10 minutes late in arriving. The journey was uneventful until Brechin where roadworks on the dual carriageway meant we had to enter and double-back the same way whilst the clock was ticking. Heavy traffic at the Kingsway meant our arrival was going to be 32 minutes late and my E3 connection would have departed.
I started working out the best way to continue my journey and how to re-validate my ticket but as we arrived I spied the E3 still on stand at South Market Street. It was actually waiting for us! After the 6 transferees boarded, we were off on the final part of the journey.
Contrast this with my recent ScotRail experience to Girvan with a change at Ayr. There, just 8 minutes late (due a breaker being tripped) my connection left on time without me on it - and a 2 hour wait for the next service. I abandoned the journey and went by bus (Stagecoach).
Well done ember - I’ll travel with you wherever I can!
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