Trivia : Operators that have non diesel buses

[lukem]

The Big Lemon use a majority of electric buses in Brighton, mostly second hand electric solos, but also bought 4 new Higer Steeds a few years ago.

For a short time they also used Higer Steeds for the 11/12 in Bath but that went back to diesel Enviro 200s.

 

[Edvid]

For those looking to travel on battery-electric buses in Leicester, such vehicles are very easy to spot - just look for anything in green!*

Most of them are GB Kites operated by First, and there are a cluster of Yutong E9/10/12s operated by Roberts Travel and Centrebus (the latter even launched a free circular on an 18-month trial back in April). Arriva started taking delivery of StreetDecks just the other day.

[* Currently 80 on the road, per Leicester Buses website]

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Sep 2023 ==

On the flip side, Arriva's withdrawal from two ZEBRA schemes in the past year may have put paid to Milton Keynes and Stevenage getting zero-emission buses for the foreseeable. The latter's loss may be Hatfield's gain if this statement from the University of Hertfordshire is to be believed (page 17 of their Net Zero Action Plan):

While innovation will no doubt play an important part in the decarbonisation process of the travel industry, UNOBus already has several electric buses, as well as a fully electric auxiliary fleet, and have recently been awarded a £6.4 million ZEBRA grant by Hertfordshire County Council and TfL to continue to electrify the bus fleet and upgrade the infrastructure to support this.

 

[kijeta]

Thanks to Welsh Government's subsidies, quite a few Welsh operators have electric buses (mostly Yutongs): Newport Bus, Cardiff Bus, First, to name a few.

Monmouthshire county has two very weird looking electric vehicles, which aren't Yutongs.

 

[Jordan Adam]

 Shed as in the roof leaks and it's draughty?

Can't say i've experienced that on any Yutongs, Plaxtons however is a different story....

Whilst not 'technically with it' the batteries on electric/hybrids require replacement after a number of years. The cost of so doing outstrips the net book value of the vehicle. So now we see buses prematurely scrapped just over halfway through their normal working life.

A lot of operators are now selling the batteries to an external companies (like Hitachi) and then leasing them back as a service package, therefor the cost of battery replacement when the time comes is already covered. Of course battery technology has also come a long way since the early 2010s.