E-MAIL
At Busworld 2019, the Dutch company Ebusco will present its latest acquisition: the Ebusco 3.0.
Good news for the Innovation Label of the Busworld Awards. It concerns a bus with electric drive built entirely with composite material. The new bus (Patio P1 stand) is a prototype. Ebusco's CEO Peter Bijvelds expects this Ebusco 3.0 to be ready for series production by the end of next year.
The current Ebusco 2.2 electric city bus is still being built in China. The new Ebusco 3.0 will be built entirely in the spacious production halls of Ebusco's new factory building in the Dutch town of Deurne. The bus is built of glued carbon fibre reinforced plastic on a carbon spaceframe. A special feature of the Ebusco 3.0 is the drive shaft consisting of only two wheels. This is immediately noticeable in the interior, where the passage between the rear wheel arches is no less than ninety centimetres wide. Thanks to the completely low floor, wheelchair users can easily move from front to back through the bus.
500 KILOMETRES
A ZF AVE130 rear axle with 2x120 kW engines is used. The bus is 33 percent lighter than the Ebusco 2.2 and according to the manufacturers this is without sacrificing robustness, stiffness and safety. Furthermore, the drive consists of ZF inverters and Chinese LiFePO4 batteries. According to Bijvelds, the light construction provides the new bus with a maximum range of 450 km. The batteries are incorporated in the 3.0 in the floor, which benefits the centre of gravity. Batteries located on top of such a 'light' bus would inevitably cause stability problems. Another new feature is that Ebusco can offer this 3.0 version over time with a panoramic roof of seven metres long.
INNOVATION AND SAFETY
Electric propulsion is no longer new, but this Ebusco offers plenty of innovative, practical 'gadgets' on board that also improve safety. The driver is recognised on arrival, after which the bus automatically switches the seat, steering wheel, etc. to the correct position. A second innovation is that the mirrors have been replaced by cameras and screens. This is the MirrorEye system from OrlacoVision (Busworld hall 4, stand 428). Ebusco offers its customers systems to monitor the performance of the bus in real time. Information that is also stored by Ebusco, about four gigabytes per month, provides the Dutch bus manufacturer with a wealth of data to be used for new developments. At Ebusco, we look beyond the bus. Bijvelds states that its company delivers a complete system. "Driving an electric bus is different from driving a diesel bus, which is why we remain involved with the customer." The first two prototypes of the Ebusco 3.0 will be tested in Munich.