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TTC: Electric and alternative fuel buses


This London Transit Commission report is an interesting read. It seems we have reached an uneasy transition period from fossil fuel powered buses to battery electric buses.

Supply chain disruptions, manufacturers going out of business, new engineering and investment requirements, and increased demand for battery electric vehicles have all added up to give one manufacturer a monopoly on some segments of the transit market.

You can see in the chart: Nova Bus intends to stop hybrid production by the end of this year, conventional diesel production by the end of 2025, and CNG production by the end of 2026. If anyone wants a 40-foot conventional diesel or hybrid bus, New Flyer is the only option.
 
APTA-2048 said:

This London Transit Commission report is an interesting read. It seems we have reached an uneasy transition period from fossil fuel powered buses to battery electric buses.

Supply chain disruptions, manufacturers going out of business, new engineering and investment requirements, and increased demand for battery electric vehicles have all added up to give one manufacturer a monopoly on some segments of the transit market.

You can see in the chart: Nova Bus intends to stop hybrid production by the end of this year, conventional diesel production by the end of 2025, and CNG production by the end of 2026. If anyone wants a 40-foot conventional diesel or hybrid bus, New Flyer is the only option.
Click to expand...
Very interesting takeaways, nice link @APTA-2048.

In my eyes the less NovaBus around the better, frankly their bus design is problematic (and that's me being kind). I'd be more than happy if another manufacturer came in to replace them and fills their voids.

As i've noted before, the only way I see NovaBus staying around is if the Quebec government continues to prop them up. Asides from that I think it's just a matter of time before they finally bite the dust.
 
APTA-2048 said:
You can see in the chart: Nova Bus intends to stop hybrid production by the end of this year, conventional diesel production by the end of 2025, and CNG production by the end of 2026. If anyone wants a 40-foot conventional diesel or hybrid bus, New Flyer is the only option.
Click to expand...
The report does say that Nova have not actually ruled out continuing with hybrid in 2027, but that proceeding would be subject to market conditions. I wonder if TTC hadn’t indicated an intent to discontinue hybrid purchases prior to 2040 - 12 years (so 2028) if that would have kept Nova interested in prolonging production even if there were some costs involved in integrating a Cummins X10 series powerplant.
 
APTA-2048 said:

This London Transit Commission report is an interesting read. It seems we have reached an uneasy transition period from fossil fuel powered buses to battery electric buses.

Supply chain disruptions, manufacturers going out of business, new engineering and investment requirements, and increased demand for battery electric vehicles have all added up to give one manufacturer a monopoly on some segments of the transit market.

You can see in the chart: Nova Bus intends to stop hybrid production by the end of this year, conventional diesel production by the end of 2025, and CNG production by the end of 2026. If anyone wants a 40-foot conventional diesel or hybrid bus, New Flyer is the only option.
Click to expand...

The London Transit staff report was interesting - but not sure how accurate it is. We were recently in Montreal, and saw many hybrid buses in use, including 60 foot articulated units. The Nova Bus web site indicates Hybrid artics are available:

Bus models - Novabus

novabus.com novabus.com

while the staff report indicates no availability of Hybrid artics from either supplier. Unless they mean on available on what they deem to be commercially acceptable terms....
 
AHK said:
The London Transit staff report was interesting - but not sure how accurate it is. We were recently in Montreal, and saw many hybrid buses in use, including 60 foot articulated units. The Nova Bus web site indicates Hybrid artics are available:

Bus models - Novabus

novabus.com novabus.com

while the staff report indicates no availability of Hybrid artics from either supplier. Unless they mean on available on what they deem to be commercially acceptable terms....
Click to expand...
All the buses in Montreal were purchased before 2023. For a brief period in 2024, New Flyer indicated that engines for hybrid articulated buses were not available. That’s why Brampton’s newest articulated buses are conventional diesel. Presumably this was the case with Nova Bus, but they never updated their website. Cummins has since made an EPA 2024 compliant engine for hybrid articulated buses available. So the report is outdated in that respect.

I’ve seen a hybrid articulated bus ready for delivery for Quebec City, so they are definitely available now. But this will be the last year any hybrids are ordered in Quebec. The Quebec government will only fund battery electric buses from 2025 onward. This actually puts Nova Bus at a disadvantage because they do not have a battery electric artic.
 
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I heard rumours that not only is Nova getting away from diesel buses , but Volvo who owns Nova wants to eventually get rid of Nova altogether. Now, how true that rumour is , I don’t know.

Another factor is Trump getting back into the White House and severely crippling EPA and not funding many of the green incentives , potentially forcing transit agencies away from EV.

It will be interesting to see how all this plays out by this time next year. I’m not familiar with the industry, but I do believe Nova might be a cutting themselves off a bit to quickly.

Another factor is Cummins diesel being the only engine available. That’s another monopoly for diesel and hybrids. What happen to Detroit diesel and Catapiller. Clearly I’m out the loop on the Diesel engine manufacturers.

I don’t think there’s much information, research on articulated EV buses for TTC to be taking a risk to replace all 152 diesel Nova artics. So TTC would need to order hybrid Artics while Nova is still around, so NFI doesn’t gouge TTC in prices. However I can see TTC testing maybe 10 EV artics. You would think Nova would have at least an EV articulated demo before getting rid of diesel and hybrid options.
 
RapidTransit said:
I heard rumours that not only is Nova getting away from diesel buses , but Volvo who owns Nova wants to eventually get rid of Nova altogether. Now, how true that rumour is , I don’t know.

Another factor is Trump getting back into the White House and severely crippling EPA and not funding many of the green incentives , potentially forcing transit agencies away from EV.

It will be interesting to see how all this plays out by this time next year. I’m not familiar with the industry, but I do believe Nova might be a cutting themselves off a bit to quickly.

Another factor is Cummins diesel being the only engine available. That’s another monopoly for diesel and hybrids. What happen to Detroit diesel and Catapiller. Clearly I’m out the loop on the Diesel engine manufacturers.

I don’t think there’s much information, research on articulated EV buses for TTC to be taking a risk to replace all 152 diesel Nova artics. So TTC would need to order hybrid Artics while Nova is still around, so NFI doesn’t gouge TTC in prices. However I can see TTC testing maybe 10 EV artics. You would think Nova would have at least an EV articulated demo before getting rid of diesel and hybrid options.
Click to expand...
US EV demand is not so much an issue for Nova Bus anymore as they will be leaving the US market in 2025. But ending diesel production at the same was a bit of a shock move. Some in the industry share your same concerns.

Cummins has had a monopoly on transit bus engines since 2009/2010. Detroit diesel elected not to make an EPA 2007 compliant version of their Series 50 engine. Daimler came out with a global engine platform for all their brands like Mercedes, Detroit, and Mitsubishi. However there was no engine for the North American transit market. Caterpillar no longer saw themselves as a player in the on-highway market and stopped producing on-highway engines when the EPA 2010 standards went into effect.

I believe when the LFS Artics are due for replacement, the TTC has committed to only buying battery electric buses. But you’re right, they probably should purchase a pilot fleet first. Here they have two options: New Flyer or BYD. Though Solaris could have an electric artic for North America by that time too.
 
Cummins must be busy these days - only game in town for diesel buses, pretty much the only game in town for diesel passenger locomotives
 
APTA-2048 said:
This is off topic, but I am curious. How are their BYD buses? I know they bought a lot of them. And I’m curious because of all the issues we’ve had with ours.
Click to expand...
Sorry for not replying sooner... I honestly don't know. Helsinki and Turku at least seem to keep their BYD fleets running properly - you don't hear many complaints on the Finnish transit forum about them.

Example:
5270-87f3b34942fddefdadb89e42fbb41022.jpg

Source

Whether it has something to do with the TAs' desire to maintain their electric buses to a higher standard than hybrids/diesels, or the strict (Nova Scotia-style) inspection ("katsastus") standards, I don't know.

Yutong for Chinese electric buses has also become a player in Finland.
 
Got word that the new electric buses should be here in a couple weeks. Numbered 6000
And the Nova electrics will be here in January 2025.
Based on the earlier conversation about Nova and their existence, it will be interesting to see this order fulfilled.
 
New Flyer just delivered the new ebus 6000 to Arrow garage on Friday.

Now this will be a real test to see a larger electric bus fleet and how TTC operates them. The current 60 ebuses are barely in service , for a variety of reasons. I believe that alone will be an indication of 400 buses coming on line. In particular the existing 3700 flyers are barely in service now.

I wont be surprised if TTC resorts back to hybrids . Similar to when they got a bunch of hybrid buses in the mid 2000s and they were all lemons, forcing TTC to go back to diesel buses.
I'm calling it, the reliability of these buses and the fleet will plummet , and the next CEO will have to answer for it.
 
The dismaying thing will be the instinct at TTC to massage the MTBF by warehousing the really bad vehicles - as it is there is suspicious capping of MTBF graphs for some categories. The CEO’s report really should have a “held out of service vehicle count” for each vehicle type.
 
RapidTransit said:
New Flyer just delivered the new ebus 6000 to Arrow garage on Friday.

Now this will be a real test to see a larger electric bus fleet and how TTC operates them. The current 60 ebuses are barely in service , for a variety of reasons. I believe that alone will be an indication of 400 buses coming on line. In particular the existing 3700 flyers are barely in service now.

I wont be surprised if TTC resorts back to hybrids . Similar to when they got a bunch of hybrid buses in the mid 2000s and they were all lemons, forcing TTC to go back to diesel buses.
I'm calling it, the reliability of these buses and the fleet will plummet , and the next CEO will have to answer for it.
Click to expand...
There should have at least been as assessment of using trolley buses on busier routes, it can't make sense to have a bus every three minutes carrying a big battery pack that needs downtime to recharge, loses range in the winter and we do know how to string overhead wires. Battery powered streetcars and subways don't exist for a reason.
 
Voltz said:
There should have at least been as assessment of using trolley buses on busier routes, it can't make sense to have a bus every three minutes carrying a big battery pack that needs downtime to recharge, loses range in the winter and we do know how to string overhead wires. Battery powered streetcars and subways don't exist for a reason.
Click to expand...
Tolley buses on fix routes are subject of not going off route as well only assign to those routes only if something happen on the route. Need substations to feed the lines as well more overhead crews to deal with issues when they happen like the streetcar lines along with a cost to built the lines as well maintain them. You can get trolley buses with batteries to deal with off route issues as well parts of routes that has np overhead in the first place. Boston and Rome are 2 good example where bus routes have no overhead at one end.

If ebuses are charged from the roof, charging stations can be built at the end of the route to be charge or at various locations to be top off. Have seen ebuses arrived at charging stations an terminals that saw no charging taking place since they didn't need to be top off or taken less than 10 minutes to charge the bus.

Not a fan of overhead as its an eyesore especially at intersection and distract the street look. The day battery power fleet arrives and overhead is remove is a day too late. This also applies to rail lines.

Battery-powered streetcars exist today and the RR is in the early days of doing it. Subway is a different story at this time and it mainly due to lack of overhead space. 20-30 years may be a different story.
 
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