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Proterra buses are here?


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19 minutes ago, QM1to6Ave said:

Great catch by your uncle! Thanks for sharing

Do they normally transport new buses like that, or are they usually driven in, but they could not for an all-electric bus that needs constant charging?

Diesel, CNG buses and Hybrids like the Orions we have are driven to NYC from the manufacturer. These Electric only buses are bought by truck cause they would need constant charging. 

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44 minutes ago, trainfan22 said:

Diesel, CNG buses and Hybrids like the Orions we have are driven to NYC from the manufacturer. These Electric only buses are bought by truck cause they would need constant charging. 

Not a great sign for the utility of these buses on long routes...

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10 minutes ago, Jdog14 said:

 

Well these buses aren't exactly for travel beyond 20+ miles....

 

Yes, but it would be nice to know that these buses could be used in an emergency, like after another hurricane Sandy if the power goes out. I don't love the idea of a bus that is so limited in travel distance 

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8 hours ago, trainfan22 said:

Diesel, CNG buses and Hybrids like the Orions we have are driven to NYC from the manufacturer. These Electric only buses are bought by truck cause they would need constant charging. 

I’m all for cleaner ways for transport but to constantly charge buses is just not effienct for big cities. You can’t put these on long routes. They’ll have to be placed on short ones. 

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6 hours ago, Brillant93 said:

I’m all for cleaner ways for transport but to constantly charge buses is just not effienct for big cities. You can’t put these on long routes. They’ll have to be placed on short ones. 

It looks like the Catalyst E2 runs a 440-660kWh pack depending on which option is selected, although that particular model tops out at 25mph on a 15% grade, with a nominal daily range of 350 miles, which means they're estimating about 1.8-2kWh per mile. Looking at the Q44 as an example of one of the longest routes in the system, it's only 14 miles or so, which means that an individual Catalyst could do about 20 runs on the Q44 each way before getting down to the bottom 20% of the pack capacity. Considering that the route is scheduled for 1.2-1.5 hours end to end, and that the rating on those buses is most likely city miles, one Catalyst could comfortably run about 30 hours or so on the Q44 in between charges.

I rather doubt they run individual vehicles for longer than 24 hours under most circumstances, so it should be fine. If not, the buses also come with a fast charging option that adds about a mile a minute of range. If you add charging stations at 180 St/Bronx Zoo, and at Merrick Blvd, and pad the schedule with a couple extra buses you could probably arrange for 7-10 minute layovers at either end. Build enough bays to handle 3-4 buses charging at once, and the bus is now making a 15-mile run and getting a 7-10 mile boost on the end, so the effective uncompensated distance the bus is traveling would drop to 5-7 miles. At that point, you could comfortably get 50-70 Q44 trips out of an individual bus before it would need a 4-6 hour timeout to recharge.

This would be easier to roll out on some routes than others; Queens would be one of the better spots to roll it out in if we tamed Flushing and got around to building an actual terminal at Parsons-Archer. If you had actual terminal buildings you could just run a few MW of power into each building, and set aside 2-3 bus bays per route (less frequent routes could probably get away with one bay per or even a shared bay if their schedules are interlaced and they tend to run really reliably (i.e. the Q15/15A). Adding proper terminal buildings or yards at major terminal areas, as well at the depots would be enough for you to sort out most of the CS and JA routes easily. Same goes for stuff out of the Williamsburg yard and lines like the M15SBS (where one terminal is at a depot and the other is in a protected turnaround bay. Different areas would require different solutions, but the longest routes are still comfortably doable.

In general I'm tempted to assert if the longest and shortest routes in the system can be comfortably set up to use these buses then they should work universally; if anyone can think of counterexamples please let me know.

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8 hours ago, engineerboy6561 said:

It looks like the Catalyst E2 runs a 440-660kWh pack depending on which option is selected, although that particular model tops out at 25mph on a 15% grade, with a nominal daily range of 350 miles, which means they're estimating about 1.8-2kWh per mile. Looking at the Q44 as an example of one of the longest routes in the system, it's only 14 miles or so, which means that an individual Catalyst could do about 20 runs on the Q44 each way before getting down to the bottom 20% of the pack capacity. Considering that the route is scheduled for 1.2-1.5 hours end to end, and that the rating on those buses is most likely city miles, one Catalyst could comfortably run about 30 hours or so on the Q44 in between charges.

I rather doubt they run individual vehicles for longer than 24 hours under most circumstances, so it should be fine. If not, the buses also come with a fast charging option that adds about a mile a minute of range. If you add charging stations at 180 St/Bronx Zoo, and at Merrick Blvd, and pad the schedule with a couple extra buses you could probably arrange for 7-10 minute layovers at either end. Build enough bays to handle 3-4 buses charging at once, and the bus is now making a 15-mile run and getting a 7-10 mile boost on the end, so the effective uncompensated distance the bus is traveling would drop to 5-7 miles. At that point, you could comfortably get 50-70 Q44 trips out of an individual bus before it would need a 4-6 hour timeout to recharge.

This would be easier to roll out on some routes than others; Queens would be one of the better spots to roll it out in if we tamed Flushing and got around to building an actual terminal at Parsons-Archer. If you had actual terminal buildings you could just run a few MW of power into each building, and set aside 2-3 bus bays per route (less frequent routes could probably get away with one bay per or even a shared bay if their schedules are interlaced and they tend to run really reliably (i.e. the Q15/15A). Adding proper terminal buildings or yards at major terminal areas, as well at the depots would be enough for you to sort out most of the CS and JA routes easily. Same goes for stuff out of the Williamsburg yard and lines like the M15SBS (where one terminal is at a depot and the other is in a protected turnaround bay. Different areas would require different solutions, but the longest routes are still comfortably doable.

In general I'm tempted to assert if the longest and shortest routes in the system can be comfortably set up to use these buses then they should work universally; if anyone can think of counterexamples please let me know.


That is great info. I did not expect the range to be so large (relatively).

 

My concern is that if all of the electric buses are confined to one depot, so only that depot has charging stations, or only routes near that depot have charging stations built near them, those buses cannot be easily transferred to other depots for long-term use. In other words, there would need to be a big investment in infrastructure in terms of charging stations if these buses are going to be widely used across the city. Knowing how poorly the MTA and ConEd work together to make infrastructure improvements, I am concerned about how  well that infrastructure is going to be made 

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2 hours ago, QM1to6Ave said:


That is great info. I did not expect the range to be so large (relatively).

 

My concern is that if all of the electric buses are confined to one depot, so only that depot has charging stations, or only routes near that depot have charging stations built near them, those buses cannot be easily transferred to other depots for long-term use. In other words, there would need to be a big investment in infrastructure in terms of charging stations if these buses are going to be widely used across the city. Knowing how poorly the MTA and ConEd work together to make infrastructure improvements, I am concerned about how  well that infrastructure is going to be made 

That is true; if you wanted these or the XE40s to be fleet staples the way the O7NGs are now you'd need to roll out a hell of a lot of infrastructure over a 2-4 year period and it would probably be a bit of a mess.

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[url=https://flic.kr/p/21PRT4J][img=https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4639/38610300124_ebf699a8a8_o.jpg][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/21PRT4J]Porterra BE40 NYCT BUS #0016[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/161226577@N06/]nyctransit Busfan[/url], on Flickr

I tried uploading some pics using the bb code but seems like a fail...

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16 hours ago, Transbusfan said:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/21PRT4J][img=https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4639/38610300124_ebf699a8a8_o.jpg][/url][url=https://flic.kr/p/21PRT4J]Porterra BE40 NYCT BUS #0016[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/161226577@N06/]nyctransit Busfan[/url], on Flickr

I tried uploading some pics using the bb code but seems like a fail...

Fixed it for ya

39317809781_11d9f8d58d_k.jpgPorterra BE40 NYCT BUS #0016 by nyctransit Busfan, on Flickr

24454573517_2ed944ae4d_k.jpgPorterra BE40 NYCT BUS #0016 by nyctransit Busfan, on Flickr

39317809511_3daccf3457_k.jpgPorterra BE40 NYCT BUS #0016 by nyctransit Busfan, on Flickr

25449405728_e87226e52a_k.jpgPorterra BE40 NYCT BUS #0016 by nyctransit Busfan, on Flickr

38610300124_a1cdc24e9e_k.jpgPorterra BE40 NYCT BUS #0016 by nyctransit Busfan, on Flickr

39317805981_fcad45ca3d_k.jpgPorterra BE40 NYCT BUS #0016 by nyctransit Busfan, on Flickr

When you paste links, paste them like this(if you're on a computer)

d20eace4c1478ba621ca4361f45f1156.png

If on mobile, paste the link and tap on the enter icon to paste another link below the other.

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What intrigues me the most is that these came with Luminator-type signs(Luminator, Axion, ect).....with the fact that the MTA has expressed their displeasure towards the Luminator Spectrum, I'm very surprised that these came with them....unless that's the only sign time Proterra offers.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think whats interesting with the Proterras is that they have LED lights on the mirrors. Something not regularly spec'd on NYCT Buses but was common on LIB. Also the oddly sized Stop Request sign seems to be on a mount that looks like it can fit those Digital Screens in the future.

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36 minutes ago, RTSTdrive said:

I think whats interesting with the Proterras is that they have LED lights on the mirrors. Something not regularly spec'd on NYCT Buses but was common on LIB. Also the oddly sized Stop Request sign seems to be on a mount that looks like it can fit those Digital Screens in the future.

I've oft wondered about that myself. Such a specification seems like a no brainer.

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