The Augusta Transit Department is looking at a fifth electric bus company’s product.
Nova Bus brought one of its hybrid-electric buses to Augusta this week.
In 2021, four companies brought electric only buses to the city. Three of the companies, Gillig, Proterra and Build Your Dreams, are based in California. The fourth, New Flyer, is a Canadian manufacturer.
Director Sharon Dottery said the city wanted to see how a hybrid bus differed from the all-electric models.
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“We’re just looking at it to see what’s the best option because we want to make the right decision for our fleet. We’re still going to have some diesel buses in place, because we just can’t change everything over,” she said, adding, “Conversations I’ve had with other agencies, you really shouldn’t change your entire fleet over to just electric, because there are issues that pop up, that you need to take care of, batteries and things of that nature. And if there’s a bus that goes down, and you can’t put it out for service, you got to have some backup.”
Nova Bus, with headquarters in St-Eustache, Canada, makes six buses including tradition diesel and all-electric in addition to the LFS HEV hybrid model.
“Since it has a small diesel engine, you basically can charge the bus as you move along. This is why we can take this bus put on any given route, and see kilowatt hour per mile,” said Nova Bus representative Shawn Remtulla. “So that when you’re going to be ready to purchase an electric vehicle, you can see if you need a four-battery pack or a six-battery pack, because there’s costs involved with batteries.”
The bus is 40-feet long. It can seat up to 41 passengers with room to accommodate up to 34 additional passengers standing. The electric components, including the motor and batteries, are manufactured by BAE Systems.
BAE Systems representative Floyd Diaz said hybrid buses can help transit agencies make the transition to all-electric models.
“It gets your maintenance crew used to high voltage electricity. And the training for a hybrid is very similar to what they’d receive for an electric with respect to personal protection gear. The safety involved with high voltage, they’ll all get trained in that and they’ll have some exposure for that before you go zero emission, battery electric buses,” he said.
Remtulla said a hybrid bus costs between $700,000 and $800,000.
Traditional diesel buses cost between $450,000 and $500,000 while an all-electric bus can cost up to $1 million. However, hybrid and all-electric vehicles have lower maintenance and upkeep costs. The breakeven point where maintenance and upkeep costs offset the higher price of a hybrid or all-electric bus is about five years. Buses are usually in service an average of 12-to-15 years.
Augusta Transit could get a financial boost for converting the system to electric buses, thanks to President Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
The bill, signed into law on Nov. 15, will send about $11 billion to Georgia with $1.36 billion going to improve public transportation options over the next five years.
On his Nov. 23, 2021 visit to Augusta, Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) said the city is in line to get more than $25 million to use for public transportation.
Dana Lynn McIntyre is a general assignment reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach her at dana@theaugustapress.com
