Battery bus nearly ready
Page 4
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
k BATTERY-electric bus—a onverted Leyland National vith a trailer-mounted battery mck—should soon be in serrice with the National Bus 2ompany's Ribble subsidiary. t has been under development Or nearly three years and has dready completed some test nileage. The vehicle has not ret received approval to carry )assengers, it is understood.
The Ribble vehicle--devel)ped by that company's engin:ering department with tssistance from NBC headparters—uses Bosch electrical omponents. Its trailer is not lesigned to be detached and the batteries will be recharged in position. A similar approach —using the same type of components—has been employed by the German GES consortium in Diisseldorf and Miinchen Gladbach. Twenty vehicles are operating in the latter city.
The German vehicles, using MAN bodies and chassis, differ from the Ribble bus in having exchangeable batteries allowing some vehicles to operate for nearly 20 hours a day. Early figures show that costs per kilometre •for the battery buses are almost 80 per cent higher than for their diesel equivalents,