Wow!! thanks so much for this article. Very informative one might say. Mostly due to what is not being stated rather than the five experimental buses put in service.
Here's what really could be happening. New flyer and related companies build 44,000 buses . 6400 of those buses were electric. Now why would they be interested in a fuel cell bus? Maybe because these electric are not getting the job done to their satisfaction. Or maybe because the cost of operation is running higher than anticipated. No company is going to come out and admit a huge error of this magnitude but I really wonder why they didn't mention anything positive about those Ev's?
Much different than our mail contractor friend who is now at 92% NatGas power and has logged over 12 million miles of practical real world use. Gotta love it.
Here's the copy and paste from that article.
NFI Group provides a comprehensive suite of mass transportation solutions under several brands: New Flyer® (heavy-duty transit buses), ARBOC® (low-floor cutaway and medium-duty buses), MCI® (motor coaches), and NFI Parts™ (bus and coach parts, support, and service). NFI Group’s vehicles incorporate the widest range of drive systems available ranging from clean diesel, natural gas, diesel-electric hybrid, trolley-electric, battery-electric and fuel cell.
New Flyer is North America's heavy-duty transit bus leader and offers the most advanced product line under the Xcelsior® and Xcelsior CHARGE™ brands. New Flyer actively supports over 44,000 heavy-duty transit buses (New Flyer, NABI, and Orion) currently in service, of which 6,400 are powered by electric and battery propulsion.
BTW Lets do the math. 6400 Ev's out of 44,000, that's under 15%, hardly a crushing number
