Ebusco, supplier of electric buses & chargers and Rocsys, supplier of EV charging automation, will provide a fully automated charging solution at bus depots. The innovative Rocsys robotics solution ensures that the CCS plug of the depot charger is plugged into the bus automatically and 100% correctly.

As a part of the cooperation one of the first serial produced robots will be installed as a demo set-up at the Ebusco office in Deurne early 2021. A second, larger series is scheduled to be delivered in July 2021.

Automated charging at bus depots saves driver time and also eliminates the risk of a bus not being charged in the morning, because someone forgot to plug in the bus or the plug wasn’t inserted properly. Reliability of the electric vehicle operation is a key element in in the transition to mass market adoption, said Peter Bijvelds, CEO of Ebusco.

Ebusco prefers plug-in charging to the use of a pantograph, as no expensive and time-consuming infrastructure is needed for plug-in charging—just the installation of chargers in the depot.

Ebusco buses are equipped with (cobalt-free) LFP battery technology that makes it possible to drive more than 350 km on a single battery charge.

The only argument we regularly hear in favor of charging via a pantograph is that nobody has to do anything manually. That argument is no longer relevant thanks to this innovative robot. This combination saves enormously on costs, time and permits compared to pantograph solutions.

—Peter Bijvelds

The robot is being further developed so that it can serve several buses at the same time. The partners are also working to standardize further the communication between the vehicle, the charger, the robot and the higher-level systems. This will support getting the entire charging process ready for self-driving electric vehicles.