I hope this thing costs similar to diesel busses, or at least total cost of ownership is similar.
Seems too good to be true.
Personally, I'd love to see every smelly bus replaced by either a CNG or a battery. Hope it is viable.

What's the range on this?

Range seems to be the hurdle for electric bus use. A typical diesel bus on a city route can run for 16 hours with one quick fillup. Having to take an electric bus out of service after the battery is used up seems like a major hurdle to widespread adoption since you'd need twice as many vehicles.

I too really would like to see pure electric busses in our cities. Noise polution bugs me just as much as the particulate from diesel.

In the 80s, engineering became "market driven" meaning that you actually talked to potential customers about a product concept and actually pre sold the product to buyers under contract before putting pencil to paper.

It still looks like there is a "build it and they will come" mentality to some of the innovators. If they can get funding on a wing and a prayer, more power to them. If investors want less risk, they will demand a better marketing position.

With only 80kWh for a bus the range will be less than 100 miles. Thunder sky are going to market a couple of full size pure EV city buses (32000lb) later this year together with FAW a leading Chinese automaker with an annual production of 25000 buses. The buses have a battery pack of 300 kWh and a range of about 300 km with air-conditioning on. Se for example http://www.thunder-sky.com/pdf/2009214102725.pdf
Or http://www.thunder-sky.com/products_en.asp?fid=71&fid2=75

I have found out that Thunder-sky charges about 312 USD per kWh and with a battery life of 1500 cycles these city buses are economical compared to diesel buses if diesel cost 3 USD a gallon. At 2 USD a gallon a diesel bus is cheaper but not much (total life cycle costs). These calculations are based on a number of other assumptions such as 10 cents per kWh, diesel bus 5mpg, EV bus 1.6 kWh per mile, 50 USD sales price per kWh for used lithium batteries (after 1500 cycles they still have much life back that utilities will pay for).

City buses are the first kind of EV applications that will become economical because the frequent stop and start of a city bus makes it impossible to get a good mpg with a diesel bus since it is operating far from its peak efficiency. However, we need 300 USD per kWh of battery or less and diesel at 3 USD a gallon or more for this to be clearly economical. Batteries will come down in price. The preferred LiFePO4 battery only needs about 10 USD worth of lithium carbonate for the production of a 1 kWh unit and probably less than 10 USD worth of the other necessary raw materials. The rest is cost of energy, machinery and work input all of which can go down in mass production and with new process technology.

My god that sucks. A half ton of batteries and all its got is the range of a fat man chasing a snickers bar.

"fat man chasing a snickers bar"

Ha! That's great.

Why not make the chasis out of carbon fiber? From what I could obatain at Optare's website, this thing weighs a minimum of 16,000lbs. CF could pull this down to 6,000lbs.

Actualy in the h2 fuel cell bus trials they state that the average city bus needed to go 218 miles per day and work 18 hours a day or something.

Prolly why we will wind up with different kinds of busses in different areas.

and use about 5 times as much primary energy

I have been working or the design and development of EV's now for the last year and find it very possible - I agree that the cost must come down and believe that it will as the cost of black gold (Crude oil) goes up. The supply of oil is very limited, and drilling is not the answer. We need other sources of energy like solar, wind and water to produce electricity. In so far as the electric vehicle (EV) goes, we need to developed high amp hour batteries (100 to 200 AH) and light weight aluminum 3 phase motors ACV motors that will produce high Kw (50 to 400 HP) and high torque that will operate off of 250 to 350 volts. They currently require 350 to 460 volts. I think the motors ideally would have duel drive shafts with roller bearings that have lubrication ports and that are replaceable. Another plus would be to have the motor water cooled. The cooling could also be used with the motor controller/Inverter and the DC to DC Converter. The weight could be further reduced by having the motor shaft hollowed out. (Similar to high performance race car crank shafts) In so far at the Concept1 conversion goes we want to be able to convert any make or model automobile (Car, truck, van, bus or motor cycle) from it internal combustion engine (ICE) over to battery powered electric communally referred to as EV. Our goal is to be able to use the existing transmission and especially the automatic transmission. Big buses and motor homes are ideally suited to immediately be converted as they can easily handle the weight of the batteries and present motors. They may or may not need transmissions depending on they desired speeds. Soon the average income person with the average vehicle will also be able to afford the conversion. It is presently very expensive and cost $30,000 to $50,000. I would like to see manufacturing of these components done here in the United States. I believe that big business manufacturing will need tax breaks from Congress to make it profitable to keep the jobs here in America. I also believe that tax credits or other incentives to the owners of the EV need to me made by congress to help the transition from ICE to EV affordable. I welcome your comments and look forward to yours. I did not mention it, but I also thought of the onboard ICE generator that many of the automakers are coming out with. This make the conversion a hybrid, but it greatly extends the range of the vehicle without the need for extra battery packs. Another thing that the buses can use is a plug in charging station at each stop to top off the batteries. I assume that the busses stop for a few minutes every now and then. These plug in adaptors could be universalized so that one type fits all, and they could be located at hotels, highway rest stops, truck stops, fuels stations, etc. My web site is www.ElectricMotorwheels.com and I think I will try to implement a comment section like this. I like it a lot.
Louis Jennings, Orlando Florida

Well I found more on this thing.

Its only got a 60 mile range and even in its largest config it only seats 33.. 21 extra can stand;/

In other words its totaly silly.

The problem is you could do a better job 30 years ago just taking an OLD mid sized bus and converting it to lead acid batteries.

Its pathetic.