When you bear in mind that Chinese companies alone produced in excess of 112,000 electric buses in 2015, a year-on-year increase of 315%, this is a sector which is often overlooked. We have the UK authorities looking to increase the number of electric buses on the road, the Helsinki government announcing the introduction of self-driving electric buses and now the likes of Tesla moving into areas such as electric trucks and maybe even electric buses at some point?
High visibility helps the EV industry
Over the years one of the main problems for the electric car market has been reluctance amongst many motorists to try this new mode of transport. We have seen issues such as cost, journey capacity and a lack of electric car maintenance and repair services coming to the fore to place doubt in the mind of motorists. So, as the number of electric buses continues to rise around the world surely this additional visibility will make the general public more at ease with electric cars and hopefully increase sales?
Range anxiety is a state of mind
As we have mentioned in some of our earlier articles, range anxiety is the natural concern that an electric car will run out of charge before you’re able to recharge the vehicle or reach home. The fact that some electric vehicles today can do in excess of 200 miles per full charge seems to have been overlooked by many people. Indeed, recent research has highlighted the fact that it is only those who have yet to try electric vehicles that have any form of range anxiety.
It seems that those who drive electric cars on a regular basis are able to plan their journeys, recharge at convenient times and have no issues with journey capacity. When you bear in mind that Tesla is rumoured to be on the verge of announcing a battery technology which can squeeze 300 miles per full charge, what is holding back motorists switching from traditional fuel to electric power?
The overlooked revolution
It is only when the likes of Tesla start to flirt with electric buses and other forms of electric transport that the general media sit up and listen. The simple fact is that electric buses have been a relative success for many years now although they do not tend to grab the headlines. We have the high-profile orders, the record production lines in China but this has been ongoing for some time now and is not a new phenomenon. So, governments around the world will now have to use electric powered public transport as a means of pushing electric cars in front of the general public.
There has even been talk of banning non-electric vehicles from city centres in the UK as a means of improving air quality and also putting more focus on these more environmentally friendly vehicles. Whether this is a step too far remains to be seen but governments around the world have invested heavily in electric vehicles and introducing them by way of public services is certainly not a bad means by which to increase exposure!
