British City Replacing Diesel Buses with Wirelessly Charging Electric Buses

September 27th, 2012 by Joshua S Hill

The British city of Milton Keynes is replacing the diesel buses on its Nº7 route with eight electric buses that will use wireless charging.

A five-year collaboration agreement committing to replacing diesel buses with all new electric ones was signed by eight separate organisations, led by a subsidiary of Mitsui & Co Europe. The bus routes should see the electric buses by the summer of 2013.

The wireless charging will allow the buses to charge when power transmitted from a primary coil buried in the road is picked up by a secondary coil on the bus, which needs spend only 10 minutes parked over a coil to replenish two-thirds of the energy consumed by the bus’s route.

Running seven days a week, the eight buses are expected to remove approximately 500 tonnes of tailpipe CO₂ emissions per year, as well as 45 tonnes of other noxious tailpipe emissions.

Source: Green Car Congress
Image Source: AndrewHA’s on Flickr

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Tags: bus, buses, electric buses, england, Milton Keynes, Mitsui & Co Europe, quickies, UK, uk buses, uk electric buses, UK electric vehicles, wireless charging

About the Author

Joshua S Hill I'm a Christian, a nerd, a geek, and I believe that we're pretty quickly directing planet-Earth into hell in a handbasket! I also write for Fantasy Book Review (.co.uk), and can be found writing articles for a variety of other sites. Check me out at about.me for more.

BP

There are so much energy wastage in the Primary and Secondary setup. Also, whether the bus is there in the area or not, current in the primary coil continuously circles, it is also wastage of power,
http://soltesza.wordpress.com/ sola

Great news.

I just don’t understand why electric buses are not catching on more quickly. They should be plenty competitive when all costs are factored in.
- dynamo.joe
  
  I hate electric buses with their overhead power lines. Thanks for making the city even uglier.
  
  These buses though, fantastic! No power lines and no diesel exhaust.
  - http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
    
    there’s actually no reason why new electric buses or trams should have overhead lines now — they can easily be grounded. the only places in the US i know of that consider keeping them above ground are places that want that old, traditional look.
- Bob_Wallace
  
  They’re new. They have to prove themselves first. If this first generation proves out then we should see rapid adoption.
JMin2020

In a word; excellent.