Also it's not even a choice. Busses are not mass produced vehicles they're regulated individually made commercial vehicles, and when the bus manufacturers say 'were not building manual transmissions as of X date', that's it. It's not happening anymore. Same with ABS, and now electric, unless you want to start manufacturing busses yourself, it's not gonna be a choice by then.
It's not just that; it's that a regulator signed off on the bus, the city has liability insurance on the bus, and the bus manufacturer will themselves be accredited and insured.
It's insane to ban e-bikes though since most of those come from reputable sources who are internationally recognized bike manufacturers. The people who made my electric bike also make professional bicycles for Olympians. Pretty sure the battery is reliable and isn't going to explode.
My bike has fallen into a swimming pool while switched on (don't ask) and nothing happened. Literally it didn't even register anything had happened it just carried it on.
Aircraft typically have a limit of 100 or 160 watt-hours and require that the battery be separate or the whole device be small (think laptop sized) so that you can dump it in a fireproof bag.
An e-bike has a ~1kWh battery that is probably strapped or zip-tied in place and there's probably no serious firefighting equipment.
I think it’s worth considering banning that type of battery, but a whole category of vehicles? There could be good reasons to ban the whole category as well but then state that, instead of making up some shit about batteries.
Hey just wanted to let you know, I've read every single post in this community and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future every night before bed when I use lemmy to claw some precious time back from the eternal grind.
I remember one episode where a girl in the bus was texting and some old lady got up to tell her that "it will go into the engine". The old lady was terrified.
Also on a bus. There was a group of girls on the bus and they were having a big loud argument about whether or not one of the group would receive a text from her partner or friend or whatever because "how would the text know where they were, as the bus is moving".
My city bans bikes from buses because of the space they take up. Scooters and folding bikes are ok only if they're folded up small enough not to be obstructive.
The really shitty thing is that bikes are allowed on trains. But if the trains are unavailable and get replaced by a rail replacement bus...because it's a bus, you can't take your bike.
I've heard that they used to have those here. But that they took too long to put your bike onto, causing buses to fall behind schedule. So they got rid of them.
I was until now unaware that there were places where (non-folded) bikes were allowed on buses. On trams and trains sure, but buses have such limited space that I can't imagine a bike being transported in them.
Not much more difficult to accommodate than wheelchairs or prams. Actually easier in many cases because the operator or probably more fit and the object more insensitive to placement.
The shape can be unwieldy because of the length, though.
Trains used to be the same here (with the exception that you could always take your bike on the train during peak hours in the non-peak direction, it was only peak direction that was banned), until they were trying to get people back on public transport after/late during the pandemic. Then they started allowing it even in peak hours, with some weird limitations like a maximum of 2 bikes per car, and only in the first or last car of the train.
A few years ago the same thing happened to me. There was someone who wasn't doing to good, on top of the station building on the next stop along throwing tiles and other things off. The operator got some replacement busses, that I couldn't get as I had my bike. So I just sat there with someone else who could get on as they had their dog. For about 4-5 hours. Sucked allot as I was tired, the dog was cute though.
Yeah and it is high quality and regularly inspected but if you bring random aliexpress chinesium scooter who knows what kinda shortcuts were used to get it under 300 dollars
Aliexpress is now a beacon of quality compared to the terrible stuff available on Temu. The worst part is that people buying a spare battery for their eScooter won't do the research and will just be happy to get a "good" deal, until it explodes in their sleep...
Tbf the manufacturing standards for plenty of e-scooters and -bikes can be pretty iffy sometimes, and people abuse them in ways that can increase the likelihood of issues. I concede that the vast majority of electric personal transportation devices that go up in flames usually happens during charging. A public transportation bus has to meet higher standards than a mono wheel scooter off of AliExpress.
(Imo they should be allowed on, but I can see the point in not doing so)
I'm not gonna say bike batteries explode all the time but I will say I worked at an ebike company and they had an entire department dedicated to handling exploding battery lawsuits.
Honestly, they should only allow devices with removable batteries, and they could have a bucket of sand outside the bus that holds those batteries. Kind of like how bicycles are attached to the front, you'd drop the battery in and then board the bus.
Meanwhile, TSA: no water bottle for you. Bring a cell phone, laptop battery, and a spare 20,000 mAh backup battery (of dodgy provenance no less)? Sure no problem.
Loved this when I was vaping and would travel for work.
Give me a ton of shit over my variety of juices, in 30mL bottles in my 3-1-1 bag...but the half dozen loose 18650s? Not a problem.
(They weren't totally loose, I had silicone sleeves on them and would rewrap them if they showed a little wear on the wrapper. I used mechs and RDAs, I wrote the newbie guide to rebuilding on reddit...I was pretty safe about it).
A lot of them will be fine but some of them are cheap knockoffs and they have unsafe wiring. It's not actually the batteries themselves as they'll probably be the same batteries it's the way the batteries are connected up that makes them more likely to explode.
Unless you are Samsung in which case it 100% was the batteries at fault not the wiring.
I keep my scooter at the farthest point from the apartment exit just to be on the safe side. I also haven't heard many bad things about this particular model (Ninebot G30 Max).
Assumably the bus company would be buying the bus from a company with better quality control then the Chinese ones. There were some knockoffs "hover boards" that catch on fire and that Chinese bus fire.
Battery Management Systems aren't some new, developing technology. We know how to safely manage Lithium battery, it's just the certain manufactures are cheaping out on the battery packs and BMS. People didn't all stop using their phones because of the Note7 fires. People didn't stop driving cars because of the Ford Pinto. They need to get over their EV fears and be more discerning
It's the quality control and the fact that the buyer is a continent or ocean away. If a western company has hired a Chinese manufacture, they can get a good product if they stay on top of plant inspections. If not, the Chinese manufacture will start cutting corners. If you're a western buyer, buy from a western company even if a majority of parts were made in China. If you manage to import a whole car from Alibaba and something goes wrong, you're SOL.
There is a clip circulating recently of a guy in China carrying his e-bike battery into the elevator. Than that thing explodes and the guy dies in a sea of flames. Yeah carrying a cheap high capacity li-ion pack into a enclosed space is not a good idea.
Quality control exists to ensure li-ion batteries don't spontaneously combust, or at least not as often. Same reason why old timey film reels were kept under very carefully controlled environments, those things can also spontaneously combust. Any place that allows QC to be skirted will result in accidents and deaths like that elevator guy.
There's a video circulating few days ago of electric scooters on a truck delivery catching fire. The funny thing the fire happened right under an Ioniq 6 billboard.
In Northern Ireland during the Troubles, people put (time)bombs on busses and when the bus driver heard about it, he just went and lifted it off the bus and put it in a ditch at the side of the road and informed the police. Couldn't be bothered with evacuating the bus in the middle of nowhere.
i dont think that an electric fleet is feasable by 2030. for one simple reason: wintertime.
the way to go for commercial vehicles is for the time being dieselelectric.
that means diesel generator, battery, and electric drive.
We already have a fully electric bus fleet in my city (Oslo, Norway).
Granted, when we had a period of extreme cold and snow last winter there was a bit of chaos. The electric buses did struggle a bit with range (though we’re talking -20 C), but the main problem was the combination of rear wheel drive and lots of snow.
do they have heating? maybe i am out of the loop, but last thing i read about electric busses was that they end up scrapped quite fast. i will read up on oslo, thanks.