20% of global bus fleet is already electric

[dan_b]

Found this line half way through this forecast "article" about future EV sales, and thought it a much more interesting figure if it's true?

https://electrek.co/2019/05/15/evs-57-percent-2040/


There are already 400,000 electric buses on the road — almost a 20% share of the global bus fleet already. BNEF expects this number to continue to rise quicker than both electrified passenger cars and commercial trucks.
Electric buses are forecasted to make up the majority of the global bus fleet by the early 2030s, and nearly 70% of the global fleet by the early 2040s

[oliver90owner]

We have a regular driver on some club outings.  He doesn’t like being called a bus driver - he drives a coach!  Now, I wonder how they define a bus for that report?

[phoooby]

I thought a coach driver was the same as a bus driver but they wear a blazer/suite jacket instead of a jumper.

[dimengineer]

Found this line half way through this forecast "article" about future EV sales, and thought it a much more interesting figure if it's true?

https://electrek.co/2019/05/15/evs-57-percent-2040/


There are already 400,000 electric buses on the road — almost a 20% share of the global bus fleet already. BNEF expects this number to continue to rise quicker than both electrified passenger cars and commercial trucks.
Electric buses are forecasted to make up the majority of the global bus fleet by the early 2030s, and nearly 70% of the global fleet by the early 2040s

Is that real? I'm highly dubious. It seems like a very large number, worldwide. And it depends on how you define it.I was on a bus in West London recently which was a hybrid. It took off under electric power, but 2 seconds in, the Diesel kicked in with a roar. Every 30s or so between stops.
Technically, it may have been "electric" but I'm not so sure.

[brackwell]

It has to help if it just catches the regen energy for restarting as this is what makes them so inneficient and then there is less brake dust which is another big pollutant.  Also not running whilst stopped. I found once that a ICE engine uses 0.6-0.8L/litre/hr on tickover -everylittle helps.

[azps]

Is that real? I'm highly dubious. It seems like a very large number, worldwide. And it depends on how you define it

From the article itself:

BNEF is including both all-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids in its numbers, though all-electric vehicles will make up the vast majority of the electric segment going forward

I expect that almost all the pure-electric buses are in China. There's a very large number of them. The last I read, they roll out new stock in numbers the equivalent of London's entire bus fleet every 4-6 weeks, and they're pure electric.

Bloomberg have been wrong in the past, and I think they're wrong again. The transition is accelerating: it's going to happen much faster than they expect. We've got plans brewing right now to accelerate the transition in emerging markets. So once again, in a few short years, Bloomberg will have to revise upward their future forecasts of BEV penetration, and bring forward the date of the demise of the infernal combustion engine - they're predicting annual sales of EVs (all vehicles, not just buses) only overtake ICEs in 2038.

They're also very pessimistic on shared-car mobility, taxis, ride-hailing and car-sharing, growing from 5% of vehicle-km now to just 19% by 2040. And even more pessimistic on autonomous vehicles, with nothing significant before about 2035.

All this means that oil demand drops from 23.7 mmbd in 2019 to 18.0 in 2040. If the drop is that little, then the future really is going to be catastrophically stuffed.

https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehicle-outlook/#toc-download

[Countrypaul]

I wonder which part of Bloomberg did the report. I could certainly imagine that a US based group might err more towards the US love of ICE than say a Euopean based group. With soem Euopean countries expecting to phase out ICE based cars by 2040, in Europe at least it seems inconceivable that Electric won't outsell ICE long before 2038.

[brackwell]

AZPS-agree

Once you have driven a EV you will never go back. Every time i leave my house i have the choice between a good quality car and my e-golf -guess which. 

[azps]

I wonder which part of Bloomberg did the report. I could certainly imagine that a US based group might err more towards the US love of ICE than say a European based group. With some European countries expecting to phase out ICE based cars by 2040, in Europe at least it seems inconceivable that Electric won't outsell ICE long before 2038.

It's Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) - in this case Colin McKerracher's team. They're spread around the world, Colin's based in London, but his accent seems to wander around various bits of North America, the UK, and Ireland. BNEF regularly consult experts across academia and industry for cutting-edge information on decarbonisation. BNEF even ask me from time to time (presumably when no one else is available). The crossover in 2038 is the global crossover. But I hope that the European crossover will have happened by the mid 2020s, and the global crossover a few short years later.

[GarethC]

Thinking of buying a model 3 and putting it on Turo (recently covered by BBC news article). Would let me go electric, subsidised by rental income, while letting others try out electric cars, hopefully doing a bit to accelerate adoption. If it works, it's the future now.