With the Yutongs why is one side of the doors have stripes on it also with the 53/54 ones when I got off on one the other day I almost walked straight into the mirror. It's like almost halfway over the door closest to the windscreen.

The mirrors on our Enviro200s are lethal. I had 3 people walk into one in the space of 2 hours yesterday!

There was at least 3x of the shorter Yutongs on the Q3 yesterday as I saw them all at once on Grey & Dean St around 5pm.
Any particular reason for the lack of longer Yutongs, and would that have left the 53/54 short?
Just curious.

There was at least 3x of the shorter Yutongs on the Q3 yesterday as I saw them  all at once on Grey & Dean St around 5pm.
Any particular reason for the lack of longer Yutongs, and would that have left the 53/54 short?
Just curious.

Saying that, I did see a Euro 6 versa on the 54 last night.

The mirrors on our Enviro200s are lethal. I had 3 people walk into one in the space of 2 hours yesterday!

 I would say its for the heated door glass elements to stop it misting up

Video from onboard the Yutong double decker

It might be the angle of the camera or the framing but the aisle looks incredibly narrow

And the indicator…so very loud

Video from onboard the Yutong double decker

That looks like the same seats as the enviros. I know people have complained about them before but I prefer them. Across all companies' E400s too.

Had a ride on the Yutong U11DD demonstrator this evening. Seems in another league in terms of build quality compared to anything ADL or Wright have produced for a number of years. It was a much more pleasant ride than the StreetDeck I caught back to town, or the E400 MMC I caught home.

Obviously the main question about it will be whether it has enough range to handle the 21. It looks to have been allocated to the same board every day it has been out which only goes to Brandon the once, and is only in passenger service for just over 12 hours, which seems pretty easy for a 21 board. While I wonder how it would cope with a longer board such as one of the 4am starts, I'd assume GNE are just be being careful with it and allocating it to a board which it should manage comfortably to avoid any embarrassment, and using remaining range/battery percentage to work out what it might be capable of.

It won't have been the best week for testing the range with the freezing weather.

I’m not sure on the technicalities of the bid but it’s difficult to compare electric fleets to traditional fleets but there’s probably nothing stopping GNE running the electrics on the Chester runs which it could easily accommodate vs those longer Brandon and Durham running boards which could run with a more traditional vehicle.

It won't have been the best week for testing the range with the freezing weather.

But at least it will show the limitations on the range, with the vehicle able to achieve better distances in more typical conditions.

It won't have been the best week for testing the range with the freezing weather.

On modern EVs, the hit to efficiency in cold weather is nowhere near as bad as the media make out. 

On our Leaf we've only noticed an 8% decrease in efficiency in the freezing weather in comparison to the warmer weather a few months back (4.1mi/kWh vs 3.8mi/kWh). And that's without pre-heating the car on grid power on most days.

If they're able to pre-heat the buses while still on charge, I'd imagine the hit to efficiency wouldn't be too different.

It's been getting back to the Depot with around 25 - 30% charge left in it

I’m not sure on the technicalities of the bid but it’s difficult to compare electric fleets to traditional fleets but there’s probably nothing stopping GNE running the electrics on the Chester runs which it could easily accommodate vs those longer Brandon and Durham running boards which could run with a more traditional vehicle.

I’m sure I read that the Levelling Up Fund money towards new EVs for the 21 meant they had to run into Durham.

On modern EVs, the hit to efficiency in cold weather is nowhere near as bad as the media make out. 

On our Leaf we've only noticed an 8% decrease in efficiency in the freezing weather in comparison to the warmer weather a few months back (4.1mi/kWh vs 3.8mi/kWh). And that's without pre-heating the car on grid power on most days.

If they're able to pre-heat the buses while still on charge, I'd imagine the hit to efficiency wouldn't be too different.

I think the bigger hit comes at much lower temperatures than we tend to get. We've had a Bz4x for a few weeks and Husband noticed about a 10% drop on Tuesday when it was very cold, particularly at higher speeds on the A19.

Well you would hope that GNE ordered enough to Run the 21 all day every day, but it is GNE so most of the time youll have 15 year old E400s, while no double electric buses are on school routes, or circling east gateshead

It's been getting back to the Depot with around 25 - 30% charge left in it

Which probably isn't ideal. 

Let's assume it is starting each day leaving the depot with 100%:

- 9.6 miles dead to CLS according to Google. 
- Approx 10 miles between CLS and NCL. It does this 7 times (06:50, 07:40, 08:32, 09:30, 10:24, 11:20, 12:14) before the Brandon trip, for a total of 70 miles. 
- Approx 20 miles from NCL to Brandon, it does this round trip once so that's 40 miles. 
- It then does another CLS round trip (16:32, 17:29), and one last trip down to CLS (18:24), for another 30 miles. 
- Then another 9.6 miles dead back to Riverside. 

That's an approximate 160 miles per day on that board. If we say it does come back nearer to 30% remaining than 25%, that means 160 miles is 70% of its fully charged range. That gives an approximate 230 mile range on a 100% battery.  

If you look at what 6315 did today, it ran dead to CLS to start (9.6 miles). It then did a trip to Durham from CLS (6.7 miles), a trip to Newcastle (17 miles), a Brandon round trip (40 miles), 2x CLS round trips (40 miles), another Brandon round trip (40 miles), a CLS round trip (20 miles), a Durham round trip (34 miles), and a dead run back to Riverside to finish (approx 5 miles). That's a total of 213 miles, and it isn't even a midnight finish or the first bus out of the yard in the morning. You're talking 17 miles to play with, and as those batteries start to degrade that's not an awful lot of wiggle room.

That's even before you consider that the range will take a bigger hit on the higher speed sections of route between CLS and Durham, which it would be required to do more often on most other boards.

I think Newcastle - CLS is longer through then Durham Road route (12 miles possibly)

Doesn’t take into account idle time or traffic (which in the city centre and through Durham Road is horrific at the moment)

I think Newcastle - CLS is longer through then Durham Road route (12 miles possibly)

Doesn’t take into account idle time or traffic (which in the city centre and through Durham Road is horrific at the moment)

Google reckons taking Durham Road is about 10 miles (10.4, but I couldn't get it spot on through Gateshead). It seems to be slightly less distance than by either the A1 or by the A184 and A194(M). 

In terms of idle time and traffic, no it doesn't, but we do know that the 160 mile board it has been doing (inclusive of all idle time and traffic) is seeing it use around 70% of it's range. You can then extrapolate it out assuming similar idle and traffic.

Which probably isn't ideal. 

Let's assume it is starting each day leaving the depot with 100%:

- 9.6 miles dead to CLS according to Google. 
- Approx 10 miles between CLS and NCL. It does this 7 times (06:50, 07:40, 08:32, 09:30, 10:24, 11:20, 12:14) before the Brandon trip, for a total of 70 miles. 
- Approx 20 miles from NCL to Brandon, it does this round trip once so that's 40 miles. 
- It then does another CLS round trip (16:32, 17:29), and one last trip down to CLS (18:24), for another 30 miles. 
- Then another 9.6 miles dead back to Riverside. 

That's an approximate 160 miles per day on that board. If we say it does come back nearer to 30% remaining than 25%, that means 160 miles is 70% of its fully charged range. That gives an approximate 230 mile range on a 100% battery.  

If you look at what 6315 did today, it ran dead to CLS to start (9.6 miles). It then did a trip to Durham from CLS (6.7 miles), a trip to Newcastle (17 miles), a Brandon round trip (40 miles), 2x CLS round trips (40 miles), another Brandon round trip (40 miles), a CLS round trip (20 miles), a Durham round trip (34 miles), and a dead run back to Riverside to finish (approx 5 miles). That's a total of 213 miles, and it isn't even a midnight finish or the first bus out of the yard in the morning. You're talking 17 miles to play with, and as those batteries start to degrade that's not an awful lot of wiggle room.

That's even before you consider that the range will take a bigger hit on the higher speed sections of route between CLS and Durham, which it would be required to do more often on most other boards.

Don’t bus companies only run the batteries down each day until they have 20% left?

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Well you would hope that GNE ordered enough to Run the 21 all day every day, but it is GNE so most of the time youll have 15 year old E400s, while no double electric buses are on school routes, or circling east gateshead

I don’t think an EV double deck exists that can run from first bus in the morning until last bus at night - they don’t in London or Manchester. 
150/170 miles is about the maximum without a middle of the day top up.

Don’t bus companies only run the batteries down each day until they have 20% left?

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I was talking to a driver on the Q3 the other week. He told me they're not allowed to drive the Yutongs with batteries below 30%, though he didn't say why. Not sure what the case is for the demonstrator.

Don’t bus companies only run the batteries down each day until they have 20% left?

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I don’t think an EV double deck exists that can run from first bus in the morning until last bus at night - they don’t in London or Manchester. 
150/170 miles is about the maximum without a middle of the day top up. 

Sounds like they're not very productive. 

Hopefully someone can have a word and drive the cost of them down. 
Don't want to be paying a premium for something that's not very productive. 

Mind, when you mix a vehicle that's not very productive, with a driver who isn't  very productive - it's got disaster written all over it.

I think Riverside will be the only electric depot with the rest of it (routes like the 10, X21) becoming Hydrogen sttarting with Deptford I think

Don’t bus companies only run the batteries down each day until they have 20% left?

I don't run a bus company so I wouldn't know. 

That said, if that is the case then the Yutong seems pretty limited in its ability to do a 21, given this has been allocated to a particularly short board and is returning to the depot with 25% left. So if they are then ordered for use on that route, you'd say that those who are running the company are pretty clueless too.

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Sounds like they're not very productive. 

Hopefully someone can have a word and drive the cost of them down. 
Don't want to be paying a premium for something that's not very productive. 

Mind, when you mix a vehicle that's not very productive, with a driver who isn't  very productive - it's got disaster written all over it.

I wonder what would happen if you put them in the hands of Stagecoach drivers, or even those over at GNW? I reckon you're looking at getting 2 full boards out of each electric vehicle per day.

No cost effective but why not by 1.5 or 2 electric decker's for each diesel one? So on can be running the other charging then swap at eldon square and put a full charge one on at 2pm and take the one used on a morning back to the depot?

No cost effective but why not by 1.5 or 2 electric decker's for each diesel one?  So on can be running the other charging then swap at eldon square and put a full charge one on at 2pm and take the one used on a morning back to the depot?

I imagine they would in an ideal world, but given EVs already cost more than a diesel bus I think it's incredibly unlikely. It's what would probably be necessary for the 21 if Yutongs were ordered, given their reported range. 

This probably just highlights that EVs aren't quite ready to replace diesel vehicles on a large number of routes within the North East, on a 1:1 basis anyway.

They're going to need some on the fly charging capability if they're going to be feasible for inter urban routes rather than just pootling round town like the existing GNE Yutongs do and like the 21 would do without going beyond CLS to Durham.

It's not just the cost of acquiring half as many vehicles again as the existing PVR, it's having somewhere to put them when not in service.

I wonder if there's provision for EV charging at Durham Bus Station.

EVs on the 21 has been on the cards for a while now, other than DCCs complete incompetence, there's no reason why it shouldn't be in place.

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I was talking to a driver on the Q3 the other week.  He told me they're not allowed to drive the Yutongs with batteries below 30%, though he didn't say why. Not sure what the case is for the demonstrator.

Need to inform control when it's at 30% so a changeover can be done, they can still driven as long as control ok it.

Anything under 20% and it needs to be taken off ASAP.

It's to prolong the life of the batteries

Need to inform control when it's at 30% so a changeover can be done, they can still driven as long as control ok it.

Anything under 20% and it needs to be taken off ASAP.

It's to prolong the life of the batteries

I thought they used LFP batteries which aren't susceptible to the issues Li-ion batteries have regarding keeping it between 10 and 80%.

They should be able to be used 0-100% without any additional degradation.

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