London To Buy 100 Electric Buses From China
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
From TimeOut
.
Cleaning up London’s air is clearly on the agenda of London’s newly re-elected mayor Sadiq Khan – and those emission-reducing ambitions were recently re-affirmed with the news that the city’s ‘Boris Buses’ are getting the boot.
And wow, we’ve got more London bus news. The Mayor just approved a deal between Go-Ahead Group (a UK transport company) and Chinese automaker BYD to build over 100 electric double-decker buses for London’s streets.
Each of the buses will apparently cost around £400,000, which is supposedly around £100,000 cheaper than what can be offered by UK suppliers.
However, the deal is not without its controversy. According to City AM, back in 2021 the United Nations wrote to BYD stating it had ‘received information’ that the company’s supply chain involved ‘alleged forced labour, arbitrary detention and trafficking of Uyghur [Muslims] and other minority workers’.
In response to that, TfL’s head of bus business development Tom Cunnington said: ‘We have been assured by the manufacturer that no unethical practices have taken place and would act immediately if provided with evidence to the contrary.”
We’ve been assured? Well BYD would say that, wouldn’t they!
I suppose we should not complain that TfL are saving money. The real question is how much cheaper would a diesel bus have been?
One US study suggested diesel would be about two thirds the price of an electric bus, while Wright, who make buses, quote typical costs from between £250,000 and £500,000.
I suspect though that TfL would have been bragging if they had actually saved money, so I think we can assume they have paid well over the odds.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Wow.
BYD is normally called Burn Your Driveway
Now BYD can be called Burn Your Depot.
Like this depot in Germany, with all 25 busses lost.
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/several-german-cities-halt-use-e-buses-following-series-unresolved-cases-fire
Ralph
It’s a good job London has the underground.
Wow. Loads more well-paid green jobs. In China.
Modular reactors.
Because there’s some limit to the amount of stuff that can be made?
How long is his new term of office?
“They would say that, wouldn’t they”, the famous Mandy Rice-Davies aphorism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_he_would,_wouldn%27t_he%3F.
Considering how long the Routemasters lasted this is blatant virtue signalling. Has Khan learned the lesson of Red Ken’s bendy buses? They took proved alarmingly combustible and proved to be a fare dodgers paradise. I assume a thorough cost per mile analysis is on file somewhere. Good luck London, you voted for him.
Please ignore ‘took’
Khan virtue signalling replacing tried and tested with expensive burn-ups in pursuit of non-existent climate change.
www. climate the movie.net
How many buses are we talking about? Is it customary to buy a large quantity from a new supplier?
Kahn’s commission?
It’s to be hoped Khan has prepared a depot where the e-buses can be kept away from proper buses. The depot will need a big charger, so it will probably be connected directly to the London Array Offshore Wind Farm, where the wind always blows when needed.
Phillip, the London Array is a touchy subject to the likes of me And Nigel Sherratt on here. It makes grid connection at Cleve Hill Sub Station near Faversham where , somewhat controversially to put it mildly, the UK’s largest BESS is being built known bizarrely as “Project Fortress”
Our King Charley boy is also proposing to build his own private housing estate nearby. And none of the locals get even the tiniest vestige of an input of our views and opinions.
Sorry to hear about that. But I been following the Cleve Hill plans. We all suffer from these massive developments, which go ahead despite massive local opposition. We have three massive wind farms, lots of single wind turbines and several square miles of solar farms in Devon. Two massive BESS have also just been given the go ahead.
Got to add in loads of asbestos for the fire barriers between the parked busses.
Will TfL have a warning ‘Health and safety’ notice saying “Warning – this bus May catch fire. Please ensure you are aware of the emergency exits”.
What about an FOI request for TFL to show the written evidence from BYD covering those concerns ?
“In response to that, TfL’s head of bus business development Tom Cunnington said: ‘We have been assured by the manufacturer that no unethical practices have taken place and would act immediately if provided with evidence to the contrary.”“
Besides, as noted, ‘They would say that, wouldn’t they” there is the little matter of getting evidence of ‘slave’ labour – if such exists. BYD is a Chinese company, and I imagine that those looking for such evidence – if it exists, of course – will get summarily convicted of imbibing lead at about 1700 feet per second.
So Little Khan is on a safe wicket, he thinks – until BYD’s mobile crematoria start cremating Londoners wholesale.
My astonishment is how few Londoners actually voted at all when he got reelected. More than 4 in 7 registered voters did NOT actually vote. Of the minority who actually voted, Khan got about 44% and a more-than 10% majority over his nearest challenger.
Auto
I think sending a message to Sushi’s incompetent socialist Tories took precedence over getting rid of the little Khant.
And where are the “high wage, Green jobs” for UK taxpayers- oh dear, there ain’t any, oh well, at least the unemployed can travel to the Job Centre on a “clean, Green, high pollution BEV”, providing of course that it does not spontaneously ignite.
What a stupid lie. You cleaned up the air 50 years ago. Old page from Commie playbook.
Correct – Our air is cleaner than before the 1970s, govt data
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/emissions-of-air-pollutants/emissions-of-air-pollutants-in-the-uk-summary
I read the number was 400.
London’s Go-Ahead transport group is set to award BYD a contract to build more than 100 buses at around £400,000 each –
They claim a range of 400 miles
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/byd-aims-replace-routemaster-400-mile-ev-london-bus
With or without heating?
If the saving from buying Chinese is only 20% only a fool or a knave would take it.
is khan one the other or both?
Agreed. Not much of a margin considering . . . .
Considering what? Either we trade with China or we don’t. If we choose not to because its a very unpleasant totalitarian regime that partitioned Tibet, brutally suppressed peaceful protest, reneged on promises to Hong Kong, lied about Covid, threatens Taiwan and enslaved its people, I’m fine with. But that has to be all trade.
Considering quality, reliability, service . . . .
Nothing to do with decision to allow trade with Chicoms. That’s ancient history.
Eh? TfL gets buses 20% cheaper, so fares are 20% cheaper. It would be absurd not to take the cheapest offer for anything.
“…cheapest offer for anything…”
Two caveats. One, provided the quality is alright. Two, provided that you are not ‘commited’ in one way or another to still pay the offeror who is turned down.
For example: if the UK buys cars from Japan, say, and a 50 year old employee of a car maker in Britain is made redundant (he will never have another proper job) WE are commited through our embedded social welfare arrangements to supporting him with real resources for the rest of his life. In effect, you are paying for two cars and only getting one.
Absurd, Phoenix.
Chinese buses ≠ British buses
Leaf ≠ Tesla
Ford ≠ Jaguar
And since when do people price their product based on their cost? They charge what the market will bear.
And what makes you think cost of buses is TfL’s only cost ?!?!
Gamecock asks, correctly, ‘And what makes you think cost of buses is TfL’s only cost ?!?!’
TfL has to employ loads of Diversity, Inclusion and Equity staff – that’s what Socialists do, and they have to be paid for, more’s the pity.
Plus the bus-drivers and inspectors, naturally – but on much lower salaries than the DIE lot.
Auto
BYD electric buses have been in service with Go-Ahead London since 2016.
https://www.bydeurope.com/article/458
FYI – The World’s Big Bus Electrification Plan
May 26, 2024
Electric buses are projected to be adopted faster than electric cars due to government support for green public transport.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Worlds-Big-Bus-Electrification-Plan.html
City buses are never far from a recharge point.
“due to government support for green public transport” means “due to subsidies by the taxpayer.“
Those recharge points will need to have massive capacity to support these machines:
“► BYD BD11 is a new EV London bus
► 532kWh Blade Battery, 500kW charging
► 0-100 per cent charge in two hours“
OK, they probably won’t charge at the full rate most of the time. Even so, a depot with, say, 20 of these things could easily draw 4 MW or more. How many TfL depots have that sort of supply capacity? The charging cables must be quite special too, probably cooled. They will give the drivers a work-out 🙂
Can the streets of London handle the enormous battery weight of a double decker EV bus???
Firstly, TfL can get rid of the hated “Boris buses”. Khan would have scrapped the lot on day 1 if he could.
Then there was no attempt to buy British. Yes, more expensive, but think of the Green Jobs! What, that was a massive lie because all green stuff is made in China?