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Recently three new zero-emission city buses appeared in Nanjing, and they would run in the First tourism bus line by the end of Jan. 2010.
The bus can run 120 km with one charge.
Compared with conventional city buses, there is no vent-pipe in the tail of the vehicle, instead, there are two lines big black squares, and each square is about half square meters. In fact, these are eight batteries, adding two batteries in front, there are ten batteries altogether, and the weight is about one ton. Battery is the source of the vehicle, and also the core accessory of the vehicle.
"The bus can run 120 km after full charge with speed of 50-70km per hour,” introduced technicist. And the battery need to be replaced after 30,000 km driving. Since the storage battery is one ton, so weight of the bus is heavier than conventional city buses and longer.
Since driven by storage battery, there is no clutch, only brake and accelerograph.
The price is 1,600,000 yuan (234,000 USD), and present conventional city bus with air-conditioner is just 450,000 yuan (65,000 USD). Whether the electric bus can reduce costs, we can only see it after operation. If the three-year warranty period expired, bus transport company has to replace battery with at least 500,000 yuan (73,000 USD) which is can be used to buy a new diesel bus.
The Maigaoqiao Electric Vehicle Charging Station has already been established, and it will be put in use in Jan, 2010. And four another demonstrating charging stations will be established before Sept. 2010.
The zero-emission electric city buses are really environmentally friendly. So it is still economical concerning to environment costs. But there are also some objections, and they are much about the price. Since the bus has to be charged for a few rounds and the maintenance costs are not low, and the battery replacement is as high as 500,000 yuan (73,000USD).