Plug-in Hybrid school bus gets 70% reduction in fuel consumption
Enova Systems has been collaborating with IC Bus for the past couple of years to build a series of plug-in hybrid school buses for testing purposes. Enova recently had an independent CARB-certified lab conduct dynamometer tests on a pair of PHEV school buses to compare the fuel consumption and emissions against conventional models. Enova's system is designed to be installed downstream of the transmission so that it can be easily adapted to buses and drivetrains from different manufacturers. One 2007 and one 2008 IC Bus Series CE bus with different engines and transmissions were tested on a West Virginia University Suburban Test Cycle designed to emulate a typical school bus duty cycle. In the tests, the PHEV buses saw a 70 percent reduction in diesel fuel consumption. Carbon dioxide emissions were cut by 40 percent while soot and NOx were reduced by 30 and 20 percent, respectively. IC Bus has also decided to cut the $200,000+ of the hybrid buses by $40,000. Currently there are 19 of the Enova equipped buses running in eleven states.
[Source: Enova]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
valkraider 8:08PM (5/02/2008)
I always wonder why things like this, including Hybrid city busses, don't have solar panels on the roofs. They are large, flat roofs that spend almost all of their time out in the open. It would only make sense.
The same with light rail trains. They should have solar panels on their roofs too. Again, large flat roofs...
If I had an RV you would bet I would have a solar array on my roof....
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jamesFF 12:36AM (5/04/2008)
70% fuel reduction, yet only 30% reduction in NOx?
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Richard 5:57PM (5/05/2008)
James:
That's probably because the engine is spending much less time "ticking over" and more time in hard use. But that's a guess.
I'd love to see an estimated ROI for this. $160k is a lot of money, but school districts are spending a ton of cash for fuel as well...
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