As reported on the BBC, “Fire brigade commander Mauro Longo told Il Gazzettino website that the bus’s batteries caught fire and made the task of clearing the bus a complex operation”.

Let’s now focus, thanks to a new contribution by Claudius Jehle, CEO of volytica diagnostics GmbH (already author of the knowledge articles series The Battery Cycle), on the relations between batteries and fire risks.

Despite the fact that electric vehicles are – according to various statistics – much less likely to burn than internal combustion engine vehicles, they still do in times. And once on fire, most Li-ion battery subtypes including NMC and LFP irrespectively of the cause, are extremly difficult to extinguish. 

The reasons for catching fire are manifold; particularly dangerous and insidious are cell-internal, electrochemically-induced defects that grow over time due to heavy or abormal usage, such as frequent fast charging or operation in cold environments of (particularly) NMC-based Li-ion batteries. Once grown to large, they perforate cells internally, connecting the positive and negative electrodes internally and thus causing a localized, seamingly miniscule short circuit that can lead to cell breakdown or – in the worst case – more short circuits and thus an avalanche of hot-spots – the infamous thermal runaway.

Such internal defects – a particularly prominent one being ‘Lithium plating‘, the formation of metalic formations inside of cells – are a challenge on their own, as their macroscopic influence is subtle, and trends make themselves noticably only on timescales greater than local electronic systems can reliably process. This is much like cancerous tissue in living organisms – over very long periods virtually undetectable, but once such tissue makes itself noticable macroscopically, it is often too late to take appropriate action. In both cases, only carefully longterm monitoring with the right detection systems can mitigate the particularly challenging risks of cell-induced fires.

It must be stated in all clarity that each and every Li-ion subtype has their own sensibility and susceptibility to usage conditions, and while for one type, fast-charging at low temperatures (e.g. for the latest Ni-rich NMC-types) is critical, it might be totally acceptable for another (e.g. LTO). You have read correctly – the latest, i.e. the newest, NMC technology is particularly delicate when it comes to robustness. The ‘hunger’ for range and energy density comes at a price: adding more Nickel increases range, but reduces self-ignition temperatures, cycle stability and the inclination towards Li-plating. LFP is believed to be more robust in that aspects, but once on fire, for whatever reasons, LFP burns as violently as other types – some researches even state that LFP is particularly prone to vapour cloud deflagrations.

But what about external events, incidents and mechanical stress?

The current consensus is that many, if not most, fires are caused by auxiliar components or other battery-unrelated sources. Overheating charging plugs, faulty insulators and cables (there are many, many cables inside a electric vehicle) or external heat sources will cause any Li-ion battery to burn with the rest, whilst not causing the fire. Those fire sources are likely to diminish with manufacturing maturity over time, while this is not equally true for the above-mentioned, electrochemically-induced sources.

The case of mechanical stress counts as an in-between. A very typical experiment to assess the safety of new cells is the ‘nail penetration test‘ – a nail is driven through a cell, and the effects are recorded and measured. Typically (but again, varying with cell-chemistry) one sees flames and/or vapour erupting from the spot, soon to ignite or otherwise explote – try searching the internet for video footage. If you recall the process of internally-triggered fire from above, this must not surprise you: a conductive metal short-cuts the positive and negative electrodes, in this case not subtle and growing internally over weeks and months, but immediatly. However in essence, the same mechanism: connecting what’s to be separated, unleashing of a lot of energy in very short time, localised hot-spots, self-enforcing repetition, thermal runaway.

Imaging a shock, an accident, a sudden compression due to a crash or penetration of a battery system by external or vehicle-bound materials (e.g. trusses) – high probablility of a critical damage. Particularly mean are cases without obvious indentations – in absence of visual cues one must rely on external diagnosis tools, because again, the local electronics are made for safe operation, not for the edge cases of total descrution. Imaging such ‘lite shock’ event has caused some damage, again not enough for a full-scale imminent event. Such pre-damage can very likely greatly increase the likelihood of premature failure later on, due to much less than another major impact.

How to best extinguish a burning Li-ion battery?

There are numerous claims on the internet and in commercial advertisements. The least common denominator might be that vast amounts of water help contain the brutal effects of burning batteries best. 

To summarize: In some cases, cell-internal, usage-induced defects cause battery fires. It is believed that many more cases are due to external forces, which can very likely trigger an imminent, and even delayed fires. Any damaged battery must be treated with utmost care. Like with monitoring human health – don’t rely on a doctor only when push comes to shove, but treat the most expensive wearing and tearing component of the mobility transition with a minimum of care and attention.

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The Lion’s City 10 E, which was already designed for the launch of the new urban range but was then slowed down by other product priorities (including the new Low Entry), has been officially presented to the public at the UITP Global Public Transport Summit in Barcelona. In the meantime, it has already been offered in some tenders (over twenty vehicles have already been ordered in Switzerland and Germany) and we will soon see it circulating in Italy as well. 

MAN Lion’s City 10 E: 10-meter e-buses, a growing market

The 10 E satisfies those countries where there is a strong demand for city buses under twelve meters that ensure good passenger capacity. Thanks to a empty weight approximately one ton lighter than the 12-meter bus (at least in the configuration with maximum battery capacity), the Lion’s City 10 E simultaneously saturates the standing room areas with the permitted limit masses, managing in some configurations to exceed the total eighty passengers. Weight distribution, thanks to the battery packs positioned on the roof both at the front and at the rear, is thus optimized. 

In the standard configuration with three double doors there is room for 27 seats plus a wheelchair platform, plus about fifty standing places, for an overall capacity of around 80 passengers, in line with ICE buses of the same length. 

As anticipated, the 10E takes advantage of the new MAN city bus range modular design and, by only shortening the wheelbase, brings the overall length to just under 10.6 meters. These proportions allow it to have a very small turning circle, similar to that of shorter buses where the rear overhang is reduced.

No changes at the powertrain of the MAN Lion’s City 10 E

The powertrain is the same as the 12E, with a Traton synchronous central motor capable of 160 kW of continuous power and 240 peak, and with a maximum torque of 2,100 Nm available from 900 RPM upward.

The motor, located less than a meter from the axle and connected by a single cardan shaft, integrates an output reduction of 1:1.595, which is added to 1:5.12 at the axle. In this way, the traditional inverted portal axle ZF AV133 is maintained, guaranteeing maximum interchangeability of parts with diesel or methane buses. Still speaking about the axles, it should be remembered that the front axle is the ZF with RL82EC independent wheels, equipped with Wabco ECAS electronically controlled air suspension and PCV self-adaptive hydraulic shock absorbers. Total or partial lowering at stops (kneeling) is standard, while parallel lifting of about 70 mm up to a 10 km/h speed is optional. 

The braking system is made of Knorr SB and SN series calipers, and it features Wabco’s EBS electronic control, which integrates ABS/ASR and, on request, ESP (stability control). The level of wear of each single gasket can be monitored on the dashboard, with two-level alerts for the driver and the workshop. The latter is sent via RIO box. 

Battery packs? On the roof

Traction control is entrusted to an inverter positioned behind the motor itself, with a cooling unit located on the left side and accessible from a special little door. Next to the inverter radiator, a further heat exchanger keeps the motor temperatures in an optimal range, circulating specific oil in a small circuit with both lubrication and cooling functions. 

The batteries are lithium-ion with NMC technology, in four or five modules of 80 kWh each. BMS unit and temperature control system are integrated. The working voltage is between 504 and 765 VCC, with a nominal value of 662 VCC. The ‘Reliable range’ maintenance function makes it possible to minimize the deterioration of batteries over the years, with a DoD (depth of discharge) that can be set between 65 and 80 percent of the capacity. The charging system features two standard CCS2 sockets, for power up to 150 kW, with the main point at the right-hand side front axle and four other positions depending on customer’s choice (front, left-hand side, central rear, right-rear). The communication protocol complies with the ISO 15118 standard.

MAN Lion’s City 10 E: technicalities!

The motor-compressor of the Knorr air-cooled screw-type pneumatic system is powered by high voltage. This is added to the traditional Wabco AMU electronically managed integrated unit, which includes a dryer with electric resistance, oil and condensate separator, divider valve.

The roof air conditioning unit is also high voltage, to be chosen between the Eberspächer AC136G3 II AE HPe with R134a gas (maximum power of 26 kW in cooling mode and 18 kW in heating mode), and the CO2-based Valeo (31 and 33 kW respectively). Both systems guarantee heating via a heat pump, to which is added a wall-mounted convector circuit with three 10 kW HV heaters and, on request, an auxiliary Spheros Thermo diesel or biodiesel 30 kW burner. Temperature management is automatic, based on the control unit settings and, possibly, on the outside temperature; in this regard, MAN prepares as many as four programs to choose from, which take into account the difference between exterior and interior, as well as consumption optimization. The driver’s seat can count on a separate Aurora frontbox with 7.3 kW in cooling mode and 19.0 kW in heating mode.

The 24-volt electrical system, constantly powered by a DC/DC converter, is the traditional Continental Kibes 32 multiplex, equipped with an advanced undervoltage protection system. Below it we find all the traditional users of ICE buses (among which we recall the internal indirect light LED lighting with four levels of intensity), plus the EHS electric pump intended for the Bosch-ZF 8098 power steering. 

The doors can have internal rototranslation system (pneumatically or electrically activated), or with pneumatic ejection or electric ‘sliding’. 

The passenger compartment, given the small wheelbase dimensions, does not allow major changes in the arrangement of seats, with the need to mount a two-seater in the entire rear half of the vehicle. Seats and handrails, however, do not provide for anchoring to the floor, which in this way has a free surface that is easy to clean. 

The driver’s seat is the one already seen on the other Lion’s City buses, maintaining rather high standards in terms of ergonomics and visibility, with a well-developed dashboard equipped with integral adjustment to the steering wheel (+10°/-10°) and numerous variants of lateral separation, possibly suitable for the sale of travel tickets on board.

Driving like a car

The 10 E is fun to drive, thanks to really good handling and a fairly contained body roll (which is more evident when empty), despite the fact that there are almost three tons on the roof (including batteries, their air conditioning system and internal climate control). Naturally, we must remember that a short wheelbase turns in less space but broadens the trajectory at the rear, forcing the driver to stay further away from external obstacles when steering from stationary or moving slowly.  Traction management can be set to different acceleration levels, as well as to different energy recovery levels in the coasting phase.

Therefore, the final customer has the possibility of acting similarly to a diesel bus (with a slight braking moment when coasting), an increased regenerative capacity (through a greater deceleration) or ‘soaring’ similar to the vehicle idling (eliminating the braking effect as long as you operate the pedal or the slowdown lever to the right of the steering wheel). 

A vehicle with a modern design and an excellent finish, with some flaws in the set-up in certain extreme conditions. But in the end, it is still a city bus and in typical driving conditions, comfort is guaranteed. 

The post Spotlight on MAN Lion’s City 10 E, the 10.5m e-bus that completes the Lion’s family appeared first on Sustainable Bus.

SASA is the first operator in Italy to welcome these H2 vehicles into their fleet. The operator has one of the main fleet Europe-wide of fuel cell buses.

CLICK HERE FOR THE PAPER

Eurac research on zero-emission buses

Let’s break it down. The Eurac Research Institute for Renewable Energy, based in Bolzano, conducted a study as part of the LIFEalps project, funded by the EU under the LIFE IP program of the European Commission. The study, published in the Journal of Energy Storage, contains insightful data on the efficiency of battery electric buses and fuel cell buses and on their energy consumption with a focus on running costs for the two technologies (not the TCO, then).

The SASA fleet comprises 21 zero-emission buses (ZEBs), accounting for 7% of the total fleet. The rest consists of diesel, compressed natural gas, and hybrid vehicles. The fleet serves various sectors within these municipalities and spans 20 urban lines, 20 suburban lines connecting different communities, and 3 urban night lines. Of the 21 ZEBs, they are distributed as follows: three Solaris Urbino 12 BEBs, two Solaris Urbino 18 BEBs, five Mercedes O530 Citaro FCEBs, and twelve Solaris Urbino 12 hydrogen FCEBs. These buses cover part of the line service for at least 14 routes in Bolzano and Laives, each with specific technical specifications.

Since not all operational and logistic costs are publicly available, the study adopted the following publicly declared costs for consistency: i) €13.80 per kg H2 for public refueling and €0.40 per kWh for charging on public streets.

What about energy consumption? “The average monitored tank-to-wheel (TTW) efficiency for the two different FCEB models was 10.07 kg H₂/100 km and 9.31 kg H₂/100 km, while the monitored TTW efficiency for the two BEB models was 137 kWh/100 km and 153.80 kWh/100 km”, the study reads.

And the paper puts also a spotlight on the “a direct comparison of the efficiency of the two bus models: the hydrogen consumption has been converted to kWh using a conversion factor of 33.33 kWh/kg H2. This results in a TTW average efficiency of FCEB models of 310.24 kWh/100 km and 335.75 kWh/100 km, respectively. The TTW efficiency results of FCEBs are much lower than the efficiency of BEBs; in fact, it is between 2 and 2.45 times lower“.

Fuel cell buses vs battery-electric buses

Based on this figure, from January 2021 to April 2022, after covering approximately 500,000 kilometers, SASA spent approximately €511,300 to refuel and recharge the ZEB fleet. Of these costs, 74% went towards refueling FCEBs, covering 56% of the distance, while 26% was allocated to BEB recharging, covering 44% of the distance.

Therefore, according to Eurac’s calculations, the operating costs for BEBs and FCEBs end up being €0.55/km and €1.27/km, respectively. This means that, for the same distance, FCEB operating costs are 2.3 times higher than those of BEBs.

Regarding the single bus model, operating costs for the Mercedes O530 Citaro and the Solaris Urbino 12 Hydrogen FCEB are €1.36/km and €1.23/km, respectively (about 10% lower for the latest delivered product). Operating costs for the Solaris Urbino 18 and Solaris Urbino 12 BEB are €0.58/km and €0.53/km (9% lower).

On the efficiency of battery-electric buses (with a ‘but’)

However, under certain conditions, fuel cell technology has proven to be more efficient than battery-electric technology. The results of the study indicate that there is a greater variability in energy consumption among battery-electric buses compared to fuel cell-powered counterparts. The study reveals that “For the FCEBs, the minimum TTW value is 14 % – 17 % lower as the overall average, while the maximum TTW is 16 % – 19 % higher as the overall average. Instead, the minimum TTW value for BEBs is 17 % – 26 % lower as the overall average, while the maximum value is 27 % – 72 % higher as the respective overall average“. Cold weather is the enemy.

For SASA Bolzano’s daily mission profiles, both technologies have proven effective, as stated by Wolfram Sparber, co-author of the study and head of the research institute: “The study shows that both technologies – hydrogen and battery electric buses – could be used successfully in daily operations allowing a clear reduction in on site emissions. The collected data show a high efficiency of battery electric buses. This leads on the one hand to a higher temperature sensitivity in their seasonal applications than hydrogen buses but on the other hand to considerably lower cost pre driven kilometre than hydrogen buses (if public available hydrogen / energy cost data are used)”.

In conclusion? In a nutshell, the numbers speak for themselves: the tank-to-wheel efficiency of electric buses surpasses that of hydrogen buses. The debate is open!

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While being very much a minority of the market (99 units registered in Europe in 2022), sales of fuel cell buses in Europe are in a way a similar story to those of battery-electric buses: much lower than the sales levels in China, but well ahead of most other regions. Hydrogen buses are attractive to those who want to diversify the technology and fuel that they depend on, or want to showcase something new and different. However, the cost of the fuel is currently very high and there are other difficulties with regards infrastructure and the initial cost of the vehicle.

Fuel cell buses (FCEB) today have a higher TCO than diesel and battery-electric buses. However, by the end of the decade, as hydrogen prices fall we expect fuel cell buses to beat diesel buses on TCO in Europe, assuming hydrogen prices are under $5 per kilogram by then.

Battery-electric buses are projected to be the least expensive option overall at the end of the decade. Hydrogen buses however offer a greater familiarity in some ways – i.e. a fairly fast refill with a fuel pump. In Europe, adding hydrogen to the mix rather than searching for more gas to produce electricity makes sense in the current energy crisis. We expect many of the hydrogen buses in the coming years in Europe to be deployed in Italy, Germany and the UK where there are high electricity and diesel prices at present.

On funding for fuel cell buses in Europe

Fuel cell buses are too costly today to be purchased without funding. In EU, most FCEB procurements receive funding at the EU level from FCH JU which has switched to Clean Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (CH JU) since November 30th 2021. FCH JU was established as a public-private partnership between the European Commission, European industry and research organizations in 2008 and aimed for the development and deployment of fuel cells and hydrogen technologies.

50 percent of the total budget of the FCH JU/CH JU are contributed by European Commission. From 2008 to 2013, the EU’s investment to the budget was about €470 million, which is based on EU’s 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7). The EU’s contribution has increased to €665 million between 2014-2020, which is financed under the Horizon 2020 Framework.

As the successor of FCH JU, CH JU got support from European Union under Horizon Europe with €1 billion for the period 2021-2027, complemented by at least an equivalent amount of private investment, raising the total budget to above €2 billion euro.

EU investments for over 100 million euros

Fuel cell bus deployment projects after 2020 benefit from EU’s investment with more than €100 million. The joint initiative for hydrogen vehicles across Europe (JIVE/JIVE2) contribute most of the FCEBs in Europe deployed today. JIVE/JIVE2 are targeting to have about 300 fuel cell buses.

In addition to FCH JU-funded deployment projects, some projects under other EU’s funding frameworks are planning to bring more FCEBs to Europe as well. The EU’s CEF-T framework (Connecting Europe Facility for Transport) also funds the deployment of fuel cell buses. CEF-T has financed H2Nodes projects with €14.5 million, 50 percent of the total project cost, which brought the first hydrogen bus fleet in Latvia. CEF-T is supporting H2Bus Consortium to deploy 600 fuel cell buses by investing €40 million. This is the most ambitious hydrogen bus deployment project foreseeable to date.

The rollout of FCEBs also benefits from whole-system investment for hydrogen and the deployment projects at member state level funded by local transport authority. A hydrogen bus fleet will be deployed in Mallorca as part of Green Hysland project, which aims to establish hydrogen ecosystem in Mallorca Spain and gain EU’s investment of €10 million.

Germany on the lead

Germany is the most active European country calling for fuel cell bus deployment. Most of the German government’s investment in hydrogen are made under the national innovative programme for Hydrogen and Fuel cell (NIP).

From 2017-2021, the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure of Germany has invested €700 million in different hydrogen projects under NIP, half of which were used to activate the market deployment. These investments have facilitated the deployment of more than 90 hydrogen buses in Germany.

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have zero tailpipe emissions so certainly will have no difficulty with meeting the Euro VII emission standards or any other regulations. This goes some way to explaining the EU’s support (although there are legitimate questions about the percentage of hydrogen that is produced from green sources and hydrogen being an inefficient use of electrical energy).

What about hydrogen combustion engines?

All hydrogen buses so far use a fuel cell. An alternative technology, hydrogen combustion engines, does exist but buses are not the main target market for this. One reason is that, unlike a fuel cell or battery electric vehicle, hydrogen engines buses would still have NOx emissions. The small emissions of NOx from a hydrogen engine may be acceptable in off-road environments and long-haul trucks but perhaps not in cities. Also, hydrogen engine vehicles have higher fuel cost than other alternatives in this market as they are less efficient. Therefore, it is forecast that the number of hydrogen engine buses sold by 2030 will be lower than the number of fuel cell buses sold even in just 2022.

Fuel cells are the way forward for hydrogen buses therefore, both in Europe and globally. While sales levels are lower than BEV and diesel, fuel cell buses will continue to take a share of the market in the coming years.

The funding is helping fuel cell buses in Europe reach levels not seen elsewhere and the sales of 260 buses in Europe is just the start, with further growth to come.

The post Where are funding for European fuel cell buses coming from? appeared first on Sustainable Bus.

​​In the UK, consultation on the end date on the sale of new, non-zero emission buses, currently proposed between 2025 and 2032, is ongoing. To incentivise the transition, so far, the UK’s Department for Transport (DfT) has invested £320m (€362m) towards the goal of funding 4,000 zero emission (ZE) buses in service by 2025.

Investment to support the ZE transition is also required from regional transport authorities and operators, where the UK model largely consists of private operators, dominated by five primary companies (Arriva, FirstGroup, Go-Ahead, National Express, Stagecoach), running services on behalf of local government authorities. However, a trend of declining revenue from lower passenger numbers across most regions is a challenge

With 1,724 ZE buses in operation in the UK by October last year amongst a total fleet of 37,800, and approximately half of the UK’s current ZE buses operating in London alone, over 95% of the UK’s vehicles are still to transition.

Grants and incentives

In England, excluding London, the DfT has awarded competition-based grants to local authorities, most recently comprising the Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) scheme. This has distributed £270m (€305.4m) in 2021/22 to 17 local authorities, with a further £205m (€232m) to be issued this year. ZEBRA application is competition based, so providing they are successful, local authorities can use the grant to procure new vehicles and infrastructure or distribute the funds to operators for ZE procurement.

The ZEBRA grant covers up to 75% of the cost increase from a diesel to a ZE vehicle and infrastructure. While ZEBRA funding is essentially free, local authorities must also allocate funds, and operators have to plan investment from their profit & loss accounts. For example, Leicester City Council, with a total fleet of 414 vehicles, has been awarded nearly £19m (€21.5m), with operators FirstBus and Arriva contributing £25.8m (€29.2m), and the city council providing £2.2m (€2.5m). This £47m (€53.1m) plan aims to provide 96 new electric buses by 2024.

What the sector requires is a commitment around long term funding for zero emission buses and a quicker, more streamlined approach to allocating this funding – the government has funded 2,548 zero emission buses since 2020 – only 130 of these have been ordered and very few are yet on the roads

Confederation of Passenger Transport policy director, Alison Edwards.

“The operator or local authority still has to find 25% incremental cost on buses and infrastructure, and beyond this, additional changes such as remodelling the depot and transitioning maintenance resources are not fundable through ZEBRA, meaning for us a further £8m (€9m) still to fund,” says James Carney, finance & commercial director, Blackpool Transport Services, which has received £19.6m (€22.2m) in ZEBRA funding to procure 115 electric buses and infrastructure. 

“Nevertheless, the ZEBRA grant is the opportunity to invest money that wouldn’t otherwise be there. The cost of running electric buses medium term is lower than diesel, so despite the initial investment, it can make financial sense long term”.

Making a business case

For some regions, particularly those with rural routes and lower passenger volume, local stakeholders cannot at present afford to begin the transition, either because local authorities aren’t allocating funds, or operator investment is undesirable for less profitable routes. Higher bus patronage is therefore a crucial requirement to encourage ZE investment.

“We’ve had decades of declining bus patronage and we still haven’t seen a return to pre-Covid passenger numbers,” says Daniel Hayes, programme manager at Zemo Partnership, an independent organisation working closely with government and the UK industry to accelerate transport to ZE. “Diminishing operator profitability is making the transition more challenging, so we’re still seeing sales of Euro VI vehicles.”

Measures to improve occupancy have also been a condition of operator investment.

“In Oxford, our ZEBRA participation was subject to introducing bus priority schemes to increase bus speed by 10%, where decreasing journey time by 1% typically gives an equal increase in passengers,” says Louis Rambaud, group strategy & transformation director, Go-Ahead Group. “These kinds of partnerships allow our business case; it’s limited investment for local authorities and it benefits all stakeholders”. 

As ZEBRA has comprised rounds of application and competition for funding at intervals, this has also created uncertainty and a stop-start procurement approach. Tim Griffen, project officer at Zemo Partnership, says: “Operators and local authorities work hard to compete for a share of government funding announced at intervals, then there’s a delay before the money is actually received, then there’s a rush to the manufacturer. And, if the application is unsuccessful, they may not receive any funding. This makes it difficult to plan, especially for manufacturers, so more consistency would be useful”. 

With an application process taking six to nine months, the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) also says the funding process needs improvement. “What the sector requires is a commitment around long term funding for zero emission buses and a quicker, more streamlined approach to allocating this funding – the government has funded 2,548 zero emission buses since 2020 – only 130 of these have been ordered and very few are yet on the roads,” says CPT policy director, Alison Edwards.

What about City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements?

An additional funding stream is also available via City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements, open to eight city regions outside of London, delivering £5.7bn (€6.5bn) capital investment in local transport networks. Greater Manchester, for example, has allocated £115m (€130m) to its ZE bus programme with £45m (€51m) committed to deliver 100 electric buses.

Meanwhile, the Levelling up Fund is a £4bn (€4.6bn) government-funded programme to invest in regeneration, culture, and transport schemes across the UK. Unsuccessful in its ZEBRA bid for 73 electric vehicles, Transport North East is applying via this alternative with the aim of delivering 52 electric buses. In a separate scheme, DfT also awarded £50m (€56.3m) to the West Midlands Combined Authority to support the Coventry All Electric Bus City and the introduction of up to 300 electric buses. 

As well as grants, the DfT is also offering operators an incentive of £0.22 (€0.25) per kilometre for accredited zero emissions vehicles.

“We haven’t yet seen evidence of the effectiveness of the 22p per km, and while it accumulates over a 15-year vehicle life, it doesn’t remove the upfront capital cost,” says Daniel Hayes. “The problem, however, is that the existing Bus Service Operators’ Grant (BSOG) of 35p per litre of diesel counteracts the ZE incentive. Operators need this funding but it’s acting against the incentive”. 

Funding London’s ZE fleet

Transport for London’s (TfL) franchised service now includes over 875 ZE buses. After an initial introductory phase of six electric vehicles, TfL received £3.5m (€3.9m) in early 2019 via the Green Bus Fund, comprising 44% DfT funding with 56% input from TfL itself. TfL says that by improving costs per bus, the budget was able to stretch to 126 vehicles. Over the next decade, TfL also plans to significantly expand its outer London bus network. Currently, the fleet has around 9,300 vehicles with a fully ZE fleet target date of 2034.

Since 2021, all new buses entering TfL’s fleet have been ZE, with all funding after 2019 coming from TfL’s network costs. Fares are the main contributor, typically reaching around £1.5bn (€1.6bn) per year since 2015, partially recovering after Covid to £1.2bn (€1.4bn) last year. Income also derives from road network compliance charges such as London’s Congestion Charge, as well as central and local government grants.

Funding the UK’s devolved administrations

Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have received funding to invest in plans similar to ZEBRA with over 600 zero emission buses funded so far. In Scotland, the ScotZEB scheme launched in 2021 pledged £62m (€70m) to nine operators and local authorities to cover 276 ZE buses and infrastructure, and a £58m (€66m) second phase is expected this year.

A notable investment example includes FirstBus’ introduction of 193 electric buses, the UK’s largest electric bus order outside of London, at its Glasgow Caledonia depot, which is also the UK’s largest electric charging hub.While Scotland has a much smaller fleet than England, ScotZEB has been praised as a faster and more efficient application process than ZEBRA, with less bureaucracy but arguably less scrutiny.

As of October 2022, Scotland had 273 ZE buses in service.The Welsh Government has awarded almost £28m (€32m) in ad hoc ZE bus grant funding to local authorities over the last three years. With the aim of achieving a 50% ZE fleet by 2028, Welsh Government says that fleet transition plans including funding are near completion.

Wales has 68 ZE buses in service.In Northern Ireland, £88m (€99.5m) investment was announced at the end of October last year for 100 EV buses and infrastructure, following £98m (€111m) provided since 2020 for 140 zero emission vehicles. Currently, there are 83 ZE buses in service in Northern Ireland.

More passengers needed

Government grants and incentives are important contributors towards the UK’s ZE transition. However, a self-sustaining approach with a modal shift in consumer behaviour is important to achieve environmental and economic sustainability. “To be in a position to deliver on net zero goals, the focus must be on increasing passenger numbers travelling by bus,” says Alison Edwards. “This will deliver a sustainable model to enable operators to continue reinvesting and deliver a network that is continuously improving”.

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The battery is the last relevant remaining wearing part of an electric vehicle – and by far the most expensive. How to charge it properly? How to reduce TCO as much as possible? Safety concerns? Three experts discuss tips, tricks and outlooks concerning the heart of EVs

An experts’ discussion about future powertrain technologies in heavy-duty transport. This is how we may entitle this interview. We met Claudius Jehle, CEO of volytica diagnostics, Dr. Martin Ufert, Group Manager for System Monitoring and Operational Strategies at Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems IVI and Prof. Dr. Harry Hoster, Chairman of Energy Technology at the University of Duisburg-Essen and Head of the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Center ZBT GmbH, to take a look at the future of our mobility system, with a focus on the electrification of public transport.

We will not immediately have a way of manufacturing solid-state  batteries at scale. It’s always about safety. With the existing lithium-ion technology we learned all the hard lessons when they were in  laptops and early mobile phones. We don’t even know what the ‘training ground’ for the solid-state batteries will be

The powertrain for the future of mobility

The future of mobility is electric – only the powertrain technology is still written in the stars. Which powertrain technology do you think will win the race and why?

Claudius Jehle: «In my mind there will be no ‘winner’. The future will still have combustion engines, hybrid- as well as fully battery-powered vehicles. For anything up to several hundred kilometers of range, Li-Ion batteries are predestined from today’s perspective, and for everything beyond, hydrogen or other technologies will be the system of choice».

Harry Hoster: «Yes, for long-haul and heavy-duty there will be a growing share of hydrogen. Now, fuel cell technology for hydrogen usage has not reached the level of mass production. Where I see hydrogen being quite relevant – once ready – are municipal fleets like waste trucks or logistics. The heavy goods industry is keen on hydrogen because of the higher energy density compared to battery packs».

In terms of transport, the attention has largely been turned away from hydrogen, but in the transport sector, it continues to raise hope. What developments can be expected here?

H.H. «The expected development is the transition to mass production. The big issue that currently holds back the large-scale introduction of fuel cells into heavy goods transport are the concerns about the lifetime of fuel cell stacks. The current technology, which has been tested on normal passenger cars, won’t work here because of the totally different availability and load requirements».

C.J.: «History seems to repeat itself. We have seen – a decade ago – infancy, degradation, problems with cracking, problems with water inrush in PV modules. Then the same happened, or now happens, with batteries. Now degradation and all the same issues are being faced by the promising hydrogen technology. This affects both the production side, like electrolyzers, and the fuel cells on the consumption side. That’s actually very interesting».

If you are using NMC technology, you should not charge at low  temperatures, especially not too fast. This combination can really  cause safety issues in the long run! Also, an often neglected factors the level to which you charge, the state of charge and the window in which you operate an asset

Li-ion, solid-state, raw materials…

Li-ion technology currently dominates the market – but raw materials are becoming rare, and a true circular economy is far from being ‘closed’ – what role will Li-ion technology play in 2030, or further away in 2045?

Martin Ufert: «In 2030 still a dominating role, 2045 quite hard to say. Lithium-ion technology will have a big role, especially NMC or LFP technology. There are some other promising approaches at the moment but still not at a commercial upscale role at the moment».

H.H. «If you are alluding to solid-state, I know that the car industry is investing huge amounts of money and there is always the chance that they have something up their sleeve that is not yet published».

M.U. «By the way, to be clear, ‘solid-state’ batteries are also just Lithium-ion batteries. The liquid electrolyte that enables the Lithium-ion to move inside the battery, to transport energy between the terminals, is replaced by a solid one. Sounds a bit boring, right?».

H.H. «True, let’s touch on the advantages later – but do you know how long it took for LFP to reach the mass market? I’m not overly optimistic about quick wins of solid-state. Even if now we have working solid-state battery prototypes in the laboratory, we will not immediately have a way of manufacturing it at scale. It’s always about safety, especially at system level. We shouldn’t forget that with the existing lithium-ion technology we learned all the hard lessons when they were in laptops and early mobile phones, with all the fires that happened. We don’t even know what the ‘training ground’ for the solid-state batteries will be. It would be unusual if they would immediately go to the mass market of electric vehicles…».

M.U. «And the current lithium-ion technology is still improving! Or at least, advancing. If at all solid-state should quickly reach scalability, it’s still a question of the price at the end».

Dr. Hoster, you postponed the question of the advantages of solid-state. What do we hope that solid-state will achieve? Will it be safety, longer range or simply being cheaper?

H.H. «The biggest driver will be safety. I think there will be more pressure on the industry to reduce the flammability, especially relevant when it comes to shipping and logistics in the large sale. As said, the fact that the often highly flammable liquid electrolyte in conventional, state-of-the-art, Li Ion batteries is replaced by a solid one – hence the name – makes this technology a good candidate for higher safety. But the rest of the technology remains, give or take, the same – it is still Lithium-ion technology! Let’s assume they manage to go for lithium metal anodes and we get rid of the graphite: that helps us save a bit on the raw material side and gain a bit of energy density. But on the cathode side, I would suspect that we would still end up with very similar materials as they are currently used in the existing lithium-ion world».

C.J. «That is actually extremely interesting and should be highlighted. Many people often compare: ‘There is Lithium-Ion and then there is the magic bullet, the other technology that has nothing to do with lithium-ion, solid-state – lives longer, is cheaper, higher energy density and safer, but this is not correct. In my mind, people are overestimating the potential that this could bring, if it was available».

C. J. «Seems odd, some of the e-bus fires in the last 12 months are attributed to so-called solid state technology, the last in Paris earlier this year. But to be clear: this technology is an early version, working at elevated temperatures of >50°C, only remotely related to the anticipated solid-state technology. There is just no ‘magic bullet’ around and no simple truths. I think, people are overestimating and oversimplifying».

M.U. «And to be fair, speaking about safety: batteries today are safe. The catastrophic fires that we have seen in buses and other assets in the past can not even be attributed to cell failures, and often the charging system is potentially the culprit. There is too much panic around!».

C.J. «Oh yes! With proper management and centralized analysis, even the last few 0.x% of likelihood can be detected hours to days, even weeks beforehand. But as said: Only if we take a close look and monitor them».

Fast charging vs slow charging

Talking about degradation: fast charging, charging cycles and temperature windows make proper charging and operation complex. What must be considered here in the context of cell degradation?

C.J.  «It depends on which cell type of the large landscape is being used. One rule of thumb: if you are using NMC technology, you should not charge at low temperatures, especially not too fast. This combination can really cause safety issues in the long run! Also, an often neglected factor is the level to which you charge, the state of charge and the window in which you operate an asset».

H.H. «A lot of that is not always under the control of the end user, don’t you think?».

C.J. «No, I think, many things can be controlled by the end user. You can control the SOC at which you park, the window in which you operate – 80% to 20% is often better than 100% to 40%! And you might be able to plant some trees to shade roof-top mounted batteries for basic temperature control. Also good for the environment. These measures can easily extend lifetime by more than 10 to 20%. Not to speak of fast charging…».

M.U. «True, fast charging mostly has cell degradation as a consequence. Still, for a fleet operator the TCO is at the end always the main point to look at. If the short-term economical advantages gained by faster charging outweigh the long-term problems, i.e. premature failure and lower resell value, then that can be a fair deal. But how many companies do this calculation? If you have, like Claudius said, fast charging just because you can and you charge your vehicles without considering these aspects, then fast charging is probably not the right choice».

Is there anything we can do to bring low TCO, longevity, safety, and environmentally friendliness more into line?

C.J. «There is a lot you can do for TCO and safety. Depending on charge patterns, storing the assets, how you park them and how you use them, you can easily extend the lifetime of a battery by more than 10% and thus bring down the total cost of ownership».

M.U. «It’s about optimizing their usage profiles. There is always a specific use case and there will need to be a specific profile to actually bring down the TCO. This really can be different between fleets of buses, fleets of trucks and fleets of medium-sized transportation vehicles. We need to raise awareness for reliable operation and better educate fleet operators and end users. Optimizing the use cases means optimizing their environmental friendliness». 

C.J. «Speaking about environmental friendliness: large populations of batteries are being replaced at the end of the warranty period, and not when they are not fulfilling their needs anymore. They often go into waste treatment, and not into recycling. Batteries are designed to withstand the complete warranty period – thus, very simply, they all will live longer! Changing them at the end of the warranty period means that you’re throwing away millions of Euros and tons of batteries».

Batteries today are safe. The catastrophic fires that we have seen in buses and other assets in the past can not even be attributed  to cell failures, and often the charging system is potentially the culprit. With proper management and centralized analysis, even the last few 0.x% of likelihood can be detected beforehand

What about second life of batteries?

Mentioning use cases after the warranty and after the first life: there is hardly any 2nd-life market for vehicle batteries that deserves the name. What hurdles have to be overcome, what challenges await us here in order to advance the establishment of 2nd life use?

M.U. «Second-life will be a hot market in the future. We are working on a project called GUW+3 in Hanover, where we are equipping tram substations with 2nd-life batteries to buffer energy and charge e-buses. This is a market that is probably growing within the coming years».

C.J. «But nobody buys a pick in a poke and nobody pays a good price for a used battery with virtually no knowledge about the past usage, the current state and especially the projected lifetime for the second use application, and this is exactly the same as with the warranty».

H.H. «Couldn’t agree more. Essentially you need something like a battery passport including data history and especially an outlook. Otherwise, people can’t engineer a stationary power container. It’s important to know in which kind of projects the batteries could be used in a second-life application. This is all about data availability and sharing».

C.J. «It’s not even possible today. There is no possibility a doctor can tell you when you’re going to die and it works the same for batteries. You need the record of the past to be able to extrapolate the future lifetime – and for batteries: value. Someone needs to take the risk of failure in the second usage scenario and someone needs to give a second warranty. Either it’s an insurance company, the second-life manufacturer or the OEM. And this can only be guaranteed by transparent and open data exchange. Luckily, more and more transport operators and asset owners require open data transfer from the OEM side».

FEATURING

Claudius Jehle is CEO of volytica diagnostics GmbH; with more than 10 years of experience in Li ion battery diagnostics, he and his team develop easy to use & independent battery diagnostics software for commercial vehicle and stationary applications. With a background in the renowned Fraunhofer Society, he has been active in battery-based public transport consultancy for almost 8 years. He regularly writes knowledge article for Sustainable Bus magazine (the Battery Cycle series).

Martin Ufert covers the position of Group Manager “Energy Storage Monitoring Systems and Operating Strategies” at the Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems IVI (Dresden). He can draw on 10 years of experience in the planning, design and operation of electrical transport systems. 

Fraunhofer IVI has been developing systems, components and software solutions for electrified drives of buses and commercial vehicles for more than 15 years.

Harry Hoster is Professor of Energy Technology at Universität Duisburg-Essen and Scientific Director of “The Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Center ZBT GmbH”. His research covers hydrogen technologies and batteries, from fundamentals to applications. He was founding director of the UK company “Altelium Ltd.”, which specializes on novel battery-related insurance products. By training, he is a physicist (Universität Bonn) with a PhD in Engineering and a Venia Legendi in Physical Chemistry.

The post How to get the most out of e-bus batteries? appeared first on Sustainable Bus.

74% of coaches are estimated to be non-electrified in 2030 in EMEA region. In that segment, for a few years we’ll mostly see plans, targets and pilot projects.

Electric vehicles have proven themselves with early adopters and will now start to make serious inroads into the market for most vehicle types. This includes cars, urban buses and light and medium duty trucks. These vehicles are electrifying mainly because the total cost of ownership over a number of years is lowest for electric vehicles.

Long-distance coaches hard to electrify

However, as battery electric vehicles sweep much of the on-road commercial market this decade, two applications are going to take longer to crack: long-distance coaches and heavy-duty trucks.

The first of these is coaches, where the main difficulty is the long distance travelled. This requires a larger battery which can makes the up-front cost of the vehicle prohibitively expensive, even if there is an eventual payback period due to fuel savings. A second challenge is very limited supply. Bus manufacturers are focused on urban buses with their electric vehicles, and the supply of intercity battery electric buses is very limited. 

There is also an infrastructure challenge. It’s much harder to produce a network of charging stations across a country (what is needed for intercity buses) and much easier to just have one charging hub (as required for urban buses).

No attention from government to long-distance coaches…

Also, governments have given almost no attention, focus or policies towards electrifying intercity buses – which may make some sense as it is a low proportion of total emissions and not as easy to decarbonize as some other areas. In some cases, this is also because governments tend to play a closer role in urban transport systems than they do in long distance buses, perhaps because the free market naturally seems to handle the latter case better than the former. Governments are electrifying urban buses to meet climate goals, whereas private companies have less of an incentive to do so. Finally, air pollution is more of a problem in cities than on intercity routes due to the greater concentration of people. Yet another reason why it makes sense to focus on urban buses first.

Where Western electric coaches do exist, they are often on short routes. For example, Dundee and Edinburgh in Scotland are 60-65 miles apart, and Santiago and Rancagua in Chile are only 55 miles apart. In both cases, the buses do a return trip without charging, allowing operation from a central hub and a similar size battery pack to an urban bus. These coaches, one in Europe and the other in Americas, were provided by Chinese vendors Yutong and King Long respectively. The supply of such buses in the West is extremely limited.

Our interviews with bus OEMs for our upcoming truck and bus report in May led us to conclude that we will see very little improvement in the outlook for intercity bus supply or demand in the short term. Long-distance coaches are forecast to be the last on-road vehicle type to fully decarbonize.

Decarbonization of long-haul trucks to be slightly faster than long haul buses

While the intercity bus market may struggle to attract government attention and private investment due to its small size, the same cannot be said for the market for long haul trucks. To take the example of the US, only an estimated 1,742 intercity buses were registered in 2021 in the US, compared to an estimated 175,583 long haul trucks (this is total vehicles of all powertrain and fuel types).

Due to the larger market opportunity, electrifying long-haul trucks is attracting interest from OEMs and greater investment in internal research, development and production than long-distance coaches. This is clear from our discussions with OEMs. Components customers are also more focused on the truck market as the larger market.

The large number of vehicles, and large size of each of these vehicles, means they make a large contribution to emissions that governments increasingly won’t be able to ignore as the decade progresses. This has also contributed to our forecast of decarbonization of long-haul trucks being slightly faster than long haul buses.

However, the challenges for electrification of this vehicle type are harder than for any on-road vehicle type. The vehicles are very large and the technology is not very mature. While there is no fundamental obstacle, the best precise architecture (e.g. battery location, type, size, transmission, number of speeds, E-axle or not) is still a matter for debate. Vehicles could not be produced in large volume in 2023 even if there were an unexpectedly high demand.

Infrastructure is another big challenge, especially given that many truckers regularly cross borders requiring the use of different networks with different standards and payment systems. A network with high international compatibility, at least in Europe, will likely make sense but will be another challenge.

Some OEMs are therefore working to a schedule of production beginning to ramp up around 2025 (our country forecasts project most countries to be at between 1% and 3% of long-haul trucks being battery electric in that year), with a third or half of their new vehicles being electrified in 2030. By 2040 we can expect that most or all new on-road trucks will be electrified, either with fuel cells or without. These timescales are already an advance on what OEMs and analysts such as Interact Analysis were forecasting two years ago. The current high prices of raw materials for batteries, and supply chain issues, caused by the pandemic and war in Ukraine provide no incentive to push forward those timescales again.  

Long-distance coach electrification will take time

2040 is a long way away. Forecasts for 2040 are quite speculative and there may be technologies, legislation or even changes in public sentiment in 2040 that are impossible to imagine today.

What we can really say with confidence is that diesel will certainly continue to lead – indeed, dominate – in the next few years. The combination of lower price vehicles, existing fuelling infrastructure, available supply and being a known and understood vehicle type give diesel too many advantages for now. And with legislators focusing on city environments where NOX can do more harm, diesel will undoubtedly still account for the largest share of long-haul heavy trucks in 2025. We also forecast diesel will still account for the majority of sales even in 2030, especially when we account for regions like Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and South-East Asia where the pace of electrification is very slow.

In the next few years, for commercial vehicles in urban environments, orders for electric vehicles will start to shift towards purchases in the thousands rather than tens or hundreds. However, for long haul, news will mostly be restricted to plans, targets and pilot projects, showing that there is still some life in the internal combustion engine yet. In some countries with no electrification plans from their government and strong economic growth, it is even plausible that diesel may see a similar number of vehicles sold in 2030 as 2020. Long haul will be the last on-road holdout for diesel, which isn’t ready to die yet.

The post Where diesel isn’t dead yet: 26% of EMEA coaches expected to be electrified in 2030 appeared first on Sustainable Bus.

The 1950s through 1980s saw a drive towards increasing the energy density and size of steam turbines from c. 150MW to 600MW – and several severe incidents due to early-stage design shortcomings are well recorded¹. But, as in every developing industry, each development is likely to go through, and undergo at times a painful cycle of continuous leaning and improvement. 

In the oil and gas industry, the IOGP norms successfully define clear barriers and procedures intended to mitigate risks of early stage technology. But not only in this industry it is best practice to collect, monitor and transparently share and discuss information on incidents and failures to fuel an improvement process – one that brought such turbines to maturity. 

Electric vehicles fire: batteries and reasons

What does that example tell us about electric vehicles? That (a) inexcusable events like fires are to some extent expectable and (b) can be overcome if there is transparency on root causes.

As experts from academia, firefighter training, diagnostics and insurance, we are in close contact with the stakeholders every day and will thus not marginalize the severe challenges they face after a fire, such as in Stuttgart² or Hannover³. A few days ago, a RATP e-bus (by BlueBus) caught fire in Paris. Rather, we want to raise general awareness of the scope of the problem and present mitigation strategies.

Why EVs burn? A loot at cells level

To begin with – the problem is smaller than one might think. Transparency on EV failures and underlying causes sadly is by no means an established practice, making it difficult to obtain reliable and independent statistics. It is suspected that the major source of ignition is caused by charging-induced overheating of components. One source⁴ states that only 19% of 125 investigated EV fires were unanimously traceable back to a failure of the battery.

Electric vehicles fire: understanding ‘lithium plating’

Generally speaking, a Li-Ion battery can be regarded safe. “Self ignition” can, if at all, only be assumed if internal microscopic defects accumulated to critical levels. In simple terms Li-ions travel from one pole to another inside a cell, while electrons take that journey through the electric circuit of the vehicle. Under good conditions, the ions migrate into the opposite electrode to be reunited with the well-travelled electrons. Yet if it is cold, the current is high (fast-charging) and/or that host electrode is already well-filled, this migration becomes as cumbersome as boarding an already packed plane with another three dozen shivering passengers. So, under such conditions, it is electrochemically more favourable to form metal deposits on the electrode – “Lithium Plating”. 

A continuous repetition of this process stacks up such defects, potentially up to the point of “dendrites”⁵, penetrating filaments that cause internal short circuits. Those in turn may generate heat, which is vital for speeding up chemical processes, leading to even more heat and gases being generated – a self-sustaining process called “Thermal Runaway”. Such a situation becomes ballistic in less than 5 minutes, eventually violently venting gases in the form of electrolyte-soaked, thick white vapor clouds⁶. These clouds can ignite into long, flare-like flames, flash fires or even an explosion.

Note: the conditions that facilitate plating are only partially controllable by a vehicle’s battery management system. It is the operator’s responsibility to monitor and foster their batteries, just like careful storage, handling and sensible monitoring of flammable liquids is unquestioned best-practice.

Electric vehicles fires: a techno-economical perspective

One of the greatest advantages of EVs is not only their expected environmental impact, but their potentially superior total cost of ownership (TCO) – that is, low fuel and maintenance costs and long lifetime, if maintained well. This can naturally be achieved by bringing CAPEX/OPEX down, or lifetime up, or ideally both. Alas, in the last decade or so, the demand-side was unilaterally focused on CAPEX reduction. This is partially due to long-established (or mandated) procurement philosophies, but also due to a lack of leasing or other advanced financing opportunities, as we outlined in the last edition of Sustainable Bus magazine. 

This prioritization of a “race to the bottom” in price reduction over lifetime, in conjunction with the universal and largely unquestioned hunger for range and fast-charging capability and their demonstrated adverse effects on safety, logically went at the cost of longevity and safety. The notorious secretiveness around the known and (of course) all the unknown EV fires in turn does nothing to help improve the situation.

How can risks of EV fires can be decreased?

Equipment barriers. Long-range, fast-charging-able assets at the lowest price might bear issues with longevity, availability and also safety. A more bespoke procurement philosophy that puts TCO over CAPEX and goes away from unnecessary long-range requirements – everywhere this is financially and legally possible – will have a strong impact not only on longevity, economic feasibility and safety, but also lower costs in the long run.

Construction measures. Bringing in dedicated Li-ion fire risk experts into the depot design and construction process must become customary. An increased awareness for sharing experiences about, circumstances of and reasons for past incidents will hopefully also lead to a continuous improvement process in the industry – this demands a willingness to share lessons-learned. 

Human factors. All people must understand the basic physical principles and take heed of the “dos and don’ts” – vehicle drivers, maintenance personnel to planners, purchasing and bookkeeping departments, need to be made aware via trainings and continuous education. Just as one doesn’t smoke next to the gas nozzle, “cold fast-charging” must be avoided wherever possible. There must be an understanding that not everything that is possible or allowed is necessarily advisable or harmless, but can in fact be detrimental.

Proper management and due use of an asset. Permanent knowledge of battery safety and quality status, indications about preventive lifetime and risk optimization potentials and suitable early-warning systems of batteries, vehicles and infrastructure must and will become standard, given the virtually nonexistence of visual or other battery checks. A well-managed portfolio will also reduce fire and operational insurance costs and have a substantial lifetime and TCO impact. It is becoming common for operators to demand periodical asset portfolio quality reports from the OEMs – a step into the right direction.

All stakeholders – the whole industry, operators, users, OEMs and manufacturers, insurance, leasing and banking companies, policy makers and industry associations – must all stand up for sharing information transparently to facilitate a safe and economical transition that can keep up with international competition. Christensen, Jehle, Johns, Markham

¹ Bush, S.H., 1978, Nuclear Safety, “A reassessment of turbine generator failure probability”, Vol.19, No. 6, p 681 – 696.   

² https://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.grossbrand-in-stuttgarter-busdepot-ausgebrannter-bus-geborgen.28e79888-2001-46a6-989a-d5fadcec2ba9.html

³ https://www.focus.de/auto/ratgeber/sicherheit/braende-elektrische-busse-e-busse-nach-grossbrand-vorsichtshalber-stillgelegt_id_13371120.html 

⁴ https://www.evfiresafe.com/ev-fire-global-timeline (24 of 125 investigated fires were unanimously traced back to battery failure)

⁵ Cf. Latin dens, „tooth“ (cf. dentist). Note that there are also other bad effects, but for the sake of simplicity we limit ourselves here

⁶  This vapor cloud consists of droplets of electrolyte, hydrogen (ca. 30-50%), oxygen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride, hydrogen cyanide, ethane, methane and other hydrocarbons, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, A. R.Baird, E. J. Archibald, K.  C. Marra and O. A. Ezeko, “Explosion hazards from lithium-ion battery vent gas”, J. Power Sources, 446 (2020) 227257, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2019.227257 or P. A.  Christensen, Z. Milojevic, M. S. Wise, M. Ahmeid, P. S. Attidekou, W. Mrozika, N. A. Dickmann, F. Restuccia, S.M.Lambert and P.K.Das, “Thermal and mechanical abuse of electric vehicle pouch cell modules”, Applied Thermal Engineering, 189 (2021) 116623, 16pp

THE AUTHORS

Prof. Paul Christensen is the Professor of Pure & Applied Electrochemistry at Newcastle University, UK. He is Senior Advisor to the UK National Fire Chiefs Council, member of UK Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Energy (BEIS) Storage Health and Safety Governance and Storage Safety – Fire Service Working Groups. 

Claudius Jehle is CEO of volytica diagnostics GmbH; with more than 10 years of experience in Li ion battery diagnostics, he and his team develop easy to use & independent battery diagnostics software for commercial vehicle and stationary applications. With a background in the renowned Fraunhofer Society, he has been active in battery-based public transport consultancy for almost 8 years. He regularly writes knowledge article for Sustainable Bus magazine (the Battery Cycle series).

Alex Johns is Business Development Manager of Altelium Ltd. with over 20 years of transport industry experience. Altelium provides bespoke warranty and operational & fire risk insurance products for battery systems in every stage of the usage life.

Paul Markham has been working in the power and rotating machinery industry for 33 years. Chairman of the European Power Committee for over 10 years, he has conducted risk engineering surveys, and supported underwriting and claims personnel in power generation industries worldwide, including renewables, coal, hydro, geothermal, solar and combined cycle facilities for eighteen years.

The post On the reasons behind e-buses (and EVs) fires and how to decrease risks (the problem is smaller than one might think) appeared first on Sustainable Bus.