Following trials, Scania’s first battery electric bus, the Citywide Low Floor, will from mid-March be operated in regular traffic in the northern Swedish city of Östersund.
The three first buses will ply a 15-kilometre route with some 40 stops. With 10-minute charging, the buses will run every 15 minutes for a total of 100 journeys each day.
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Tom Terjesen, editor of Norway’s leading trade magazine Busmagasinet and president of the International Bus and Coach Jury, recently had the opportunity to test the new buses. He found that the bus handles well on the road with minimal interior noise. “Normally a new set of sounds is detected in an electric bus when the diesel engine is removed,” he remarks. “But in Scania’s battery bus there’s hardly any noise at all. A little squeak from door strips is what we discover, but then we drive on icy and poorly ploughed roads.”
Terjesen noted that even at the maximum speed of 70 kmh, there was insignificant noise from both wind and powertrain. “Scania has created a very good battery bus. A bus that is identical to the diesel versions of Citywide inside and out, but with a zero-emission powertrain.”
