Pure-electric Swiss buses to run on 15 second "flash-charges"
New fleet of buses to run on short bursts of recharging every time they stop to pick up passengersThe Swiss city of Geneva will soon benefit from a new fleet of pure-electric buses that are powered by overhead ”flash-charging" stations that recharge buses while they stop to drop off or pick up passengers.
Effectively eliminating range anxiety or the need to carry costly heavy battery cells, initially, just 12 buses, manufactured by bus-maker HESS, will be trialled along routes from Geneva airport to a suburb on the outskirts of the city, but if successful the buses and the flash charging technology could be rolled out throughout the city.
The pure-electric buses, that will carry around 10,000 passengers a day are sequentially recharged by 13 chargers along the route.
Each flash-charge delivers an incredible 600kW blast for 15 seconds - that's five times the power a Tesla Supercharger can deliver. The energy drawn is then more than enough for the bus to drive to the next charger along the route.
The new flash-chargers and buses will be introduced in 2018 as part of a huge $21 billion investment in the project by the local Geneva government.
ABB, the creators of the flash chargers, claim the new scheme will save as much as 1000 tonnes of carbon dioxide in one year alone compared with 12 buses powered by existing diesel technology.
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