World`s best battery electric bus is Linkkerbus
 

Hi,

I have been now over one year doing engineering the world`s best electric bus Linkkerbus.

Linkkerbus uses aluminum body which makes it about 3000 kg lighter (own weigth about 9500 kg) than similar size steel buses weight. In city driving the lightweight is crucial to get good efficiency. Lighter weight means also more payload or paying customers and less tire, brakes and other components wear in use. That leads cheaper running costs and more profits to the operator.

Linkkerbus gets 0.7 kWh/km efficiency levels which is 0.3 kWh/km better what the next best electric buses are able to reach at the moment. Now the real tweaking can soon begin to improve the efficiency even better. Much of that comes from the lightweight body but also the power train is optimized for best efficiency. -Regular diesel buses reach 3.0 kWh/km


Bus is designed so that it can be fast charged at the final station and it can run continuously on the line. Current charge times are under 5 minutes

So far we have sold buses to Helsinki, Copenhagen and Turku.
ABOUT - LINKKER

Video of the current conversion bus in action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED6x...ature=youtu.be

Feel free to ask anything and I try to answer what is possible at the time. many new things are coming to push the efficiency levels to something that has never been seen before in the bus industry.

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Cool...:thumbup:


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What part of the engineering were you involved with?


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I am the head engineer for the aluminium body structures and basic constructions, guiding a small talented engineer team. I am keeping the main model up to date and doing 3D engineering. I am also making prototyping and new innovations to save materials, weigth, assemblytime or best if you can achieve all those at the same time.

Lightweigth design is the most important aspect in this bus compared to any other buses on the market. its similar like with regular cars if you lose weigth somewhere you can take out more weigth off from other components as well. So you create a positive weigth losing cycle.

In city accelerating and braking environment ligthweigth bus is the most important thing when you are trying to save energy.

Hyvää iltaa!

With all the starts and stops, the less weight there is, the better. I was wondering about the purpose of the large white structure at the front on top until I saw it pull up under the charging station.

Does the quoted weight include the batteries? What is the total battery capacity? Does the bus have regenerative braking?

At my utility rates, it might cost $16 to power the bus for the day. Cheap!

Yes battery is included in that weight. size is 40-48 kWh depending on the application. We are using Lithium Titanate batteries to keep the charging cycles fast.

Yes we have regenerative braking and also slip control for winter driving.
Energy efficient BEV - LINKKER

You mean 40-48kWh I am assuming?

How is the fast charging implemented? How often does it need to be charged?

Fast charging is usually done at the final station through the pantograph on top of the roof which raises "automatically" when driver presses button at the charging station. While charging you take in the passengers like you would do normally which takes about the time it takes to charge the bus and you can then start driving again next route

Also normal EV "slow" charging options are in use.

Range is about 70 km depending how many stops there are and how many passengers with 48kWh battery... We will soon get official energy consumption figures so its easier to compare and see the clear difference.