New Electric Bus

[Tony Galiani]

Recently delivered to Campus from a company in California.  One of our first electric buses!

Eagerly waiting for a chance to ride it.

Ciao,

Tony Galiani

[Tony Galiani]

Finally got my ride today!  Saw the bus as I was walking over to West for my coffee run so waited and caught it on the return trip.  Quiet and it still has that new bus smell!  The driver likes it - easy to maneuver and with a lot more zip than the diesel buses.

Ciao,

Tony Galiani

[cteno4]

Nice! Electric is very nice to drive, our prime has the 25 miles of pure battery and I run it on economy and even then it can really fly 0-40mph from a stop... I tried it on sport mode late on night with no one around on a 50mph road from a stop light and hit the gas, err electricity, pedal and it peeled out a few feet! Scary fast acceleration. But great as most of our travel is like 5-20 mile circuit for shopping and such so almost all electric. Many of the place I shop now have a couple of rock star parking spots with free charging! If we weren’t totally a forest at the house we could be solar for it, but hopefully will get invested into a local solar farm coop here this year.
 

We will get back down to Durham, we want to explore the area more and friends are moving to Winston this summer. We will have to make a circuit of the campus on it! Have to check out the atomic games as well with the beers on tap in a gaming/hobby shop, how could you ever leave?!

 

jeff

[Tony Galiani]

That bus operates on the main Campus route so I expect you will have the opportunity to ride it if you are in Durham this summer.  It will be interesting to see how the air conditioning affects the range during the summer months.

I should be around most of the summer with a good number of music bookings at local brew pubs ....

I was going to check out Atomic Games on Saturday but then realized I had my locations confused - it is actually not too far from Campus - for some reason I had the address as East Durham - so I might stop by when I am at work tomorrow.

Not eager to leave Durham though my wife's home town in Canada has some attractions - it is the Samosa capital of Canada (or so they say) and it does have 5 Tim Hortons!

Ciao,

Tony Galiani

[gavino200]

What campus is that? It looks pretty. The bus looks great too!

[cteno4]

Will probably do fine, our prime gets the worst electric efficiency in the winter compared to height is summer with ac on. This is from a number of factors, here in dc, in summer we are only taking off 10-30 degrees but many times in winter adding 30+ degrees (and on electric no waste engine heat to use). Electric vehicles now use heat pump system to heat and cool the interior. But in very cold weather the efficiencies are not as good when heating, but can be boosted with more complicated second stage systems (the prime has a pretty complicated system to boost overall car efficiency as high as possible on hybrid or electric). Also lipo batteries are also have a little less efficient storage at colder temps (real sweet spot for charge and discharge is 60-95F). So the simplicity you get with all electric is countered a little with needing a more complicated hvac to run all electric and get good efficiencies.
 

Duke University. It’s a nice town, but didn’t get to see a lot of campus (next time), just toni for a socially distanced coffee and muffin. Hospital is fantastic! Lots of local brews, amazing isle of local brews at the Harris teeter! Seems like a good sized arts scene as well. Really nice college town.

 

jeff

[Tony Galiani]

The pictures show the bus on Duke's West Campus with the old (1920's era) Gothic buildings in the background.  The last photo shows the bus on Campus Drive on Central Campus on its way to East Campus - three close, but distinctly different, campuses.  There is plenty of new construction as well - you cannot tell from the pictures but some of the buildings on West Campus have Gothic exteriors from the Quad side and are completely modern with glass facades on the other side.