1052 Daimler Orion VII Hybrid Buses Ordered

Daimler Buses North America has announced that it received orders totaling 1,052 for Orion VII Next Generation diesel-electric hybrid transit buses, 850 for the MTA New York City Transit, and 202 for the City of Ottawa’s OC Transpo, for delivery into 2010.

This order will bring the MTA's diesel-electric hybrid bus fleet to almost 1,700 units, making it the largest diesel-electric hybrid fleet in the world, accounting for almost 50 percent of MTA's entire fleet.

With already 1,100 diesel-electric hybrid transit buses on the road, 460 pending deliveries and these new orders, Orion has received over 2,600 orders since the launch of the Orion hybrid bus in 2003.

The Orion VII transit buses are powered by BAE Systems' HybriDrive(R) propulsion system. The series power train consists of the following:

• A 6-cylinder, 6-liter, 194 kW (260 hp) Cummins diesel, running at nearly constant speed.
• A 120 kW generator producing electric power for the batteries.
• A single 186 kW (250 hp) electric motor drives the vehicle and regenerates energy during braking. 
• A 32 kWh A123 lithium-ion battery pack, in the majority of buses, supply power during acceleration and hill climbing as well as storing energy from regenerative braking.

Compared to standard diesel propulsion, these hybrid buses deliver up to 30 percent better fuel economy while greatly reducing emissions: 90 percent less particulate matter, 40 percent less NOx and 30 percent fewer greenhouse gases. Drivers and riders enjoy a quieter, cleaner and smoother ride.

Production of all Orion V, and VII buses begins at the Mississauga, Ont. Canada factory where the integrated chassis/body structure for each bus is assembled. The structure is then shipped to the Oriskany, NY plant where seating, engines, transmissions, axles, electrical, heating and air conditioning systems, and other final finish components are installed.

Comments

[Andy]

I live in NY and the hybrid buses are a big improvement over the old ones. They are quieter and don't smell so bad when they go by. I'm glad to see the city's buying more. I hope they eventually switch the whole fleet to the hybrids.

[JP Elverding - the Netherlands]

Every small step in the good direction counts. Yet, being a patriot for once, I'd like to draw your attention this Dutch bus: http://www.e-traction.com/whisper_2.htm

Thanks
JP

[jcwinnie]

@ Andy

I live in the state of NY, basically next door to a plant involved in production of components for these buses, and believe they are an excellent choice for transit companies.

Yet I would avoid wishing that MTA totally switches, because how advantageous these buses are depends upon the route.

They are a significant investment and cost much more than a standard diesel platform, so I want fleet managers to be totally satisfied with their performance.

Then they will tell other fleet managers in other cities to consider them.

[Cyril R.]

I was in NY during the marathon recently. The hybrid buses were indeed very quiet, especially the first bit of accelleration was very low noise. Other buses and trucks spewed large black smoke plumes when accellerating from a standstill, but the hybrid buses didn't at all.

Also, I've gotten the idea that all the buses and heavy trucks in the city were polluting a lot more than the automobiles, even though the latter are more numerous. So there should be a lot of improvement in terms of pollution when most buses and heavy trucks would employ such hybrid drivetrains. Considering we've got the batteries now that can take it, it should be technically doable. It's time for some stricter legislation on this topic.

And that Dutch bus gets almost 15 MPG! Somebody call Bloomberg, it's time to reinstate the colonial trade and import an army of these buses... :)

[donb]

Cyril R said:
Other buses and trucks spewed large black smoke plumes when accellerating from a standstill, but the hybrid buses didn't at all.

Probably a bit of apple and oranges comparison here. All new diesel vehicles (which the hybrid buses would be) must meed strict emissions requirements, and generate a lot less smoke than thier older counterparts. Though a hybrid would have an easier time meeting the requirements, or exceeding them, due to the narrow load range over which the diesel engine is run. Part of this may be due to the design:
-A 6-cylinder, 6-liter, 194 kW (260 hp) Cummins diesel, running at nearly constant speed.
-A 120 kW generator producing electric power for the batteries.

It seems that the engine does not run at full power, since its main load (the generator) can take only 120 kW. The only other significant load I can think of would the the A/C, but that would probably be no more than 5 kW. The A/C my be electrically driven as well. Diesel engines are usually even cleaner when run somewhat under full power output rating.

[Cyril R.]

Good points donb. Of course not all pollution is visible either... it was just an observation. Some modern diesel are already very clean, they don't require particle filters even under the more strict regulations now. It seems an important thing we could do is get the older diesel vehicles off the road in an accellerated pace. Or retrofit them with modern nox catalysts and particle filters. Whichever is economical or practical would probably differ per truck/bus. And some of them have some nostaligic value too so they might better be retrofitted. A lot of people like the look of those old big trucks.

Diesel engines are usually even cleaner when run somewhat under full power output rating.

That's probably the reason they apparently oversized the diesel. Thanks I was wondering about that.

A lot of modern (non-hybrid) big diesels already operate at very low RPM most of the time, with diesel torque increasing over recent decades and more gears lowering average RPM requirements. This brings up the question how much could be gained with hybrid technology, especially when looking at cost/performance. Probably depends on the route, lots of stops or freeway etc. that jcwinnie mentioned.

Also, with novel materials for diesel engines, the compression ratio could be improved, increasing efficiency of diesels even more, especially big trucks and buses.

[What a lame blog]

There have been at least five huge developments regarding energy storage and generation since this entry (e.g., nanosolar's first sale and the Stanford nano-wire discovery) and not a blip here. This place used to be my go-to for stories like that, but I'm officially deleting my bookmark.

[Ken]

The nanowire battery thing is definitely worth a post - a battery that rivals liquid fuels for energy density shows how far and how fast the game can shift. And demonstrates that R&D can open pathways that could make a huge difference. Whether it turns out to be commercialized or not, the claim that batteries can't ever rival liquid fuels has just been proven wrong. If it's profitable to ship coal around the world, with batteries like this, we could ship electricity.

[bigTom]

Jim has been a little slow this past week. Presumably he has been busy, I hope he isn't suffering from a health issue.

A few interesting links:
http://www.sunflake.dk/
http://entropyproduction.blogspot.com/
http://www.nanosolar.com/
The first claims to have a method for making cheap 30% efficient cells via nanotechnology. -Or is it just a prof & grad student hyping their project?
The second discusses the potential battery tech breakthrough. The last is nanosolars corp website.

[Ken]

I should correct myself - I misread the numbers for the energy density for those batteries. Still a way to go to be as energy dense as hydrocarbons but with a 10 fold increase in capacity, and given the greater efficiencies of electric transport it's still a huge leap and if flowing into commercially produced batteries, would give EV's very good range and thus be very attractive.

[Scp]

Interesting that BAE will be using lithium-ion batteries. They have up to this point used fairly conventional lead-acid batteries. Almost every report I have heard is that customers are highly satisfied with the “Hybridrive” system. I do hope that the Li-ion batteries and the charging, control and safety circuits are ready for a large scale commercial deployment. I know that NYC transit has made a big commitment to hybrid drive buses. They have in service or on order 1700 hybrid drive buses; that will be almost half of their bus fleet. They had been using some CNG buses but decided the hybrid electric buses were so much better that they canceled the CNG program

I can’t help but wonder if BAE has plans to use or at least test Firefly Energies carbon-foam lead-acid battery. BAE is one of the large corporate investors in Firefly’s startup venture. Unfortunately BAE is a large corporation and the left hand may not know what the right hand is doing. In this particular case I think the investment in Firefly was done by United Defense Industries, Inc. UDI was purchased by BAE and became part of BAE’s Land & Armaments Operating Group. The hybrid drive was developed by BAE’s Electronics & Integrated Systems Operating Group. These are two large (about 30 K employees) and very different parts of the same company. L & A group makes things like cannons and tanks while E & IS does things like electronic warfare, flight controls, information systems and other high technology electronic systems. I don’t know if they talk to each other (or even understand each other).

If Firefly lives up to their promises, their advanced carbon foam battery is a strong competitor to Li-ion batteries. They are a lot cheaper and don’t have the potential safety problems that Li-ion has.