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E-buses in Berlin: "We are no longer in the test phase"
Photo: Sabine Gudath / imago images
2020 was the year of electromobility in Germany.
In the passenger car segment, the number of e-cars rose rapidly; almost every seventh new car was an electric car last year.
In the field of commercial vehicles, electric drives are having a harder time, but there is one exception: The number of electric buses in local public transport doubled in 2020, as a study by the consulting firm PwC has shown.
According to the analysis, the number of vehicles with battery, hybrid, overhead line or fuel cell technology increased by 357 to 676.
Most of them were in use in North Rhine-Westphalia (177), followed by Berlin (137), Baden-Württemberg (76), Lower Saxony (62) and Hesse (61).
Berlin was ahead in the ranking of cities, followed by Hamburg (55) and Cologne (45).
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Hydrogen drives play a minor role.
According to the consultants, the majority of e-buses are purely battery-powered (502).
The e-motor is operated by fuel cells in only 64 buses.
Above all, this technology is given opportunities in commercial vehicles, it promises a decent range.
Hydrogen is increasingly controversial in passenger cars because a lot of energy is lost in its production and manufacturers are offering better and cheaper battery cars.
The battery buses seem to be proving their worth.
"E-buses work, we are no longer in the test phase," said a spokesman for the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG).
Around a tenth of the fleet there is already battery-electric.
Some of the buses only charge in the depot, articulated buses also use a pantograph to draw power at the terminal stops.
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An electric articulated bus from BVG charges with a pantograph at the Hertzallee stop
Photo: Christian Retzlaff / BVG
The BVG sees the lower noise as a major advantage.
A moving e-bus is about as loud as a normal car, said the spokesman.
"Due to the lack of vibrations and the stepless driving, the buses are also very popular with drivers and passengers."
Not all buses were able to cope with the cold snap at the beginning of February with temperatures of minus 15 degrees Celsius.
»Berlin buses have a cold problem«, judged the »Welt«.
Cold creates problems for operators
The company admits that BVG had "slight problems" with e-buses without diesel heating.
Their range was lower, they are now talking to the manufacturers to solve the problem.
But no bus got stuck, the vehicles just had to return to the depot earlier.
Overall, according to the BVG, on February 8 and February 9, almost two percent of the e-bus mileage was lost.
However, this had several causes.
Apart from the cold, snow and tractor demonstrations would have hindered operations,
so the BVG spokesman.
As a result, the buses were traveling very slowly.
They braked less than usual and recovered less energy.
Models that are loaded at terminal stops apparently coped better with the cold.
"So we only have this problem with part of the electric fleet and we will take countermeasures," said the BVG spokesman.
Despite such difficulties, the proportion of vehicles with eco-drives will continue to increase rapidly, PwC expects.
They currently make up a good 1.4 percent of the public transport fleet.
In Berlin, however, all buses should be locally emission-free by 2030.
Bus manufacturers viewed the segment as a promising market.
According to PwC, almost 1,000 new battery buses will be added this year.
According to current plans, the local transport companies wanted to use more than 3000 more e-buses nationwide by 2025, it said.
The Hamburg-Holstein transport company wants to triple the number of its e-buses in 2021; they ordered 32 more copies at the beginning of February.
The Nuremberg VAG recently ordered 39 e-buses, which are to be delivered this year.
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ene / dpa