Australian bus manufacturers, workers and energy experts have called on state governments to provide the industry with stronger guarantees on the number of electric buses they will buy as Australia’s eastern states seek to replace thousands of diesel vehicles ahead of the Brisbane 2032 Olympics.
Victoria, Queensland and ACT have committed to buying only zero-emission buses from 2025, while NSW plans all buses in the Greater Sydney area to be electric by 2035. Bus manufacturers say they can build hundreds of buses a year “starting tomorrow”, but they need to More certainty from state governments that buy and own most of Australia’s public bus fleet.
The first of eight electric buses will be rolled out as part of the Victorian Government’s zero-emissions bus trial from November.
We are ready to go now,” said Mitch Biden, general manager at Volvo Bus Australia. We hope the government will give bodybuilders a guarantee of supply to enable them to invest in renewable energy [and new technology] on their sites.
The chassis of Volvo’s all-electric buses will undergo testing in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne from next month as part of a zero-emissions bus trial released by the Victorian government. The Victorian government said the trial will teach about 4,000 diesel buses in the state’s general fleet, including about 2,200 in provincial Victoria, to go to zero emissions.
It would be relatively simple to replace the 500 buses it builds each year, said Yuri Tesari, chief commercial officer of Fullgreen Australia, which has just finished building the first eight battery-electric Volvo buses participating in the trial.
Volgen Australia’s chief commercial officer, Yuri Tesari, says the company could start building electric buses “from tomorrow”, but state government demand and infrastructure remain an issue.
“For us, building on an electric chassis or on a diesel chassis is very similar,” he said. “If the government or customers want to go fully electrified from tomorrow, let’s say we can start building hundreds.”
Only 0.1 per cent of buses in Australia are electric, according to a report from the Australia Institute on Friday. Audrey Kwik, a principal transportation researcher at the Canberra-based think tank, said the bus industry needs more policy certainty from state governments and financial support from the federal government to plan for a zero-manufacturing future.
“Electricizing Australian bus fleets should be easy because most of them are publicly owned,” she said. “If state governments don’t pick up these drooping fruits soon, we should question the essence of their net zero liabilities.”
Originally published at Melbourne News Vine
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