You never know, maybe the UK will see it as a trade. North America gave Al Gore to the UK, maybe the UK can give this guy to North America (Canada)? In the end everyone goes home happy.. sort of. Almost makes you wonder if Gore could have had sweeping victory if he ran for office in Canada instead of the USA.

Hehe, nice one gents.
_Seriously, hybrid buses (with Euro5 or Tier2Bin5 diesels) are a big boon for cities. If you can add more fast charge energy storage to make it plugin, you can recharge the bus at the end/beginning of the line at the terminals. Here in NYC, buses often sit at their terminals waiting to depart for up to half an hour. With 5-10 min periods of being parked at the curb, they can replenish 25-50% of their charge. The diesel can ensure that they will not stall if the batteries run out of charge. Routes are not too long, hence a 60-200 mi electric range should do.

Enova Systems seems like they may be making there mark in the Hybrid Market. Better get in now. Looks like a good buy.

A 7 liter engine cut down to 1.9 liter genset - Thats great. Buses are very ideal for the Hybrid usage followed by Postal / Garbage trucks and then the Taxis.

Let London set the standard.

A bus like this could be a plug-in hybrid using something like AltairNano's cells (zero to 80% charge in 60 seconds, anyone?).  Charging could be done through overhead contacts at stops, which would allow 100% replacement of motor fuel with a relatively modest battery pack.

Climate control in the winter might be an issue without an engine to provide waste heat, but the fuel, noise and CO2 reductions would be about as good as you could get.

Tripp,

Found this pdf from a CalCars.org report regarding the ZEV Technology Symposium of October 17, 06.

http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/symposium/presentations/presentations.htm Page down to Session VI, and click on Status of Lithium Ion Batteries…

There is a lot of info, but about ½ way down, they talk about temperature testing. One chart shows voltage at room temperature and –30C to be about 90% similar. Other charts on charging look just as promising at low and high temperatures!

Dave,

The one-deck version uses 40% less fuel compared to its pure-diesel counterpart. Its emissions are much lower as well, not to mention the fact that noise levels are 4 dB lower.

You can read more from these links:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/buses/environmental/hybrid.asp

http://www.dieselnet.com/news/2006/02london.php

http://www.enovasystems.com/index.cfm?section=Products&linkID=3

Seeing how *every* diesel vehicle emits a cloud of black smoke during heavy acceleration, I would suspect that real-world reduction in particulate emission is quite significant, since the buses are run solely by the electric motors - there is no mechanical link between the diesel engine and the wheels. Therefore, the engine does not have to be revved high during acceleration.

JJ -

these buses are series hybrids with gensets running at constant, optimal speed and load.

Dave Zeller -

conventional city buses get about 3-5 MPG. TfL has claims a 40% improvement due to hybridization.

Zach -

wall-flow DPFs have actually been around since the 1980s but only recently has engine control hardware and software advanced to the point where these devices actually last for the lifetime of the vehicle. Peugeot was the first manufacturer to offer DPFs in series production diesel cars.

Several German manufacturers actually managed to meet EU 4 emissions without a particulate filter, but consumers are demanding them anyhow because they don't want their cars emitting embarassing puffs of smoke. Also, vehicles with wall-flow DPFs have higher resale value.

Note that the visible portion of diesel smoke fouls building facades and windows but actually does the least harm in medical terms because it is caught in the upper reaches of the respiratory system. More serious is the very fine invisible PM below ~7 microns in diameter, because it can pass through the alveolae into the bloodstream and accumulate in the liver.

Sulfur in the fuel substantially increases the harm done by particulate matter, which represents a large aggregate surface area for the sulfuric acid to catalyze chemical reactions. Therefore, ULSD and EU2010 diesel grades contribute to mitigating the health problems caused by PM.

Current PM measurements systems for vehicle certification are based on weighing a filter plate before and after, under precisely controlled humidity conditions. These measurements are difficult and the filter plates limit accuracy to 10 microns (PM10). Unfortunately, the more harmful ultra-fine particles contribute very little to total PM mass.

Newer, much more expensive, equipment can measure PM2.5 levels optically. Precise experiments have suggested that wall-flow DPFs do not substantially affect the size distribution of particulate matter in diesel exhaust gas. Rather, they reduce particle counts across the board by up to 98%.

Allen -

B5 is in line with the objectives of the EU "20 by 20" program for 2010. Here in Austria, the timeline has been more aggressive to placate farm interest. All of our on-road diesel is already B5 today.

Wrt meeting Euro 5, though, carmakers are not counting on the fuel. DPFs are widely expected to become quasi-mandatory. An interesting development published in the past two months related to homogenous diesel combustion, something we'll be hearing a lot more of in coming years.

Turns out that by using so-called split combustion at elevated loads, i.e. combusting part of the fuel homogenously and the rest conventionally, it is already possible to achieve Euro 5 levels in NEDC tests without expensive aftertreatment systems. The snag is that at the current, early stage of this research, the fuel consumption goes up by an unacceptable 5-10% relative to conventional combustion. More fine-tuning of the thermodynamics is required.

http://www.all4engineers.com/index.php;/site=a4e/lng=en/do=show/alloc=3/id=5726
http://www.all4engineers.com/index.php;/site=a4e/lng=en/do=show/alloc=3/id=5793

Well, pizmo, let's assume we could get such a battery pack at $1000/kWh (about 2.5 times today's conventional Li-ion price at wholesale).

If the batteries will cycle 16,000 times (number chosen for convenience), that's 6.25¢/kWh for the energy put through the batteries.  If I'm using them on board a bus which would achieve 4 MPG @ 25% drivetrain efficiency in stop-and-go service (allowing for torque converter inefficiencies), that's about 10 kWh of fuel per mile converted to 2.5 kWh of work.  If I recharge the batteries every 3 miles or less, I need maybe 10 kWh of cells.  Call it 20 kWh just in case, so the capital cost is $20,000.

Cost of diesel fuel @ 4 MPG is about 60¢/mile, perhaps 70-75¢ in the near future.  The batteries let me replace that with perhaps 3.5 kWh/mile of juice from the grid, 35¢/mile @ 10¢/kWh.  If the bus covers 100 miles/day the energy savings come to $25/day at the low end, $50/day at the high end.  At $25/day the annual savings are about $9100; at $50/day, $18250.  Those batteries would pay off mighty fast, wouldn't they?  And at 17 cycles/day (for the 20 kWh model), you'd get about 2.4 years of use before battery capacity dropped as low as 85% of new.  You could probably use them for some time beyond that.

If the lithium titanium spinel chemistry can be made competitive with conventional lithium-ion, the battery cost comes to about $8000-$10000.  It pays off in about a year at today's fuel prices even before you factor in the reduced maintenance costs of electric drive.

So yeah, I see these things taking off just as soon as some smart cookie finds a way to integrate a hands-off fast-charging system with a covered bus stop.

There are developments in DME in China today:
We see great potential for DME as a clean alternative fuel . The present diesel oil is a major source of air pollution from diesel engine of trucks and busses in large city like Tokyo. The potential market of diesel oil substitute is larger than LPG. DME is one of ideal fuel for diesel engine. DME vehicles were demonstratively manufactured in Japan, China and Korea and their driving test already started. Practical durability fleet test of a DME truck is under going in Japan.

We are pleased to organise a conference on China taking the lead in the DME market in production from coal and Japan and Korea activities.

If you would like to know more on COAL to Syngas to DME developments, join us at upcoming North Asia DME / Methanol conference in Beijing, 27-28 June 2007, St Regis Hotel. The conference covers key areas which include:

DME productivity can be much higher especially if
country energy policies makes an effort comparable to
that invested in increasing supply.
By:
National Development Reform Commission NDRC
Ministry of Energy for Mongolia

Production of DME/ Methanol through biomass
gasification could potentially be commercialized
By:
Shandong University completed Pilot plant in Jinan and
will be sharing their experience.

Advances in conversion technologies are readily
available and offer exciting potential of DME as a
chemical feedstock
By: Kogas, Lurgi and Haldor Topsoe

Available project finance supports the investments
that DME/ Methanol can play a large energy supply role
By: International Finance Corporation

For more information: www.iceorganiser.com