China takes the lead in adopting the all-electric bus equipped with supercapacitors.
Supercapacitor electric buses are very common in China. The Chinese company Sunwin, a joint venture between Volvo and China's largest automaker SAIC had already made a big publicity stunt in 2010 by providing 61 electric buses using supercapacitors to serve the World Expo 2010 of Shanghai.
Sunwin has more than 1, 200 employees now, amongwhich over 190are engineers and technicians. With the plant area of140,000 square meters including a construction area of over 60,000 square meters, Sunwin has the annual production capacity of 2,500 city buses and com-muter buses, and 500 chassis.
Shanghai public transport department said 200 new-energy city buses with "battery + capacitor" would be used in Shanghai. And the delivery of 30 buses to Pudong District represents the business operation of new-energy city buses in Shanghai.
It's said after the large-scale demo operation of new-energy vehicles in Expo, Shanghai saw a large number of pure-electric buses, ultra-capacitor buses and "battery + capacitor" buses, etc. After two-year comparison, the "battery + capacitor" city buses prevailed.
Deputy General Manager of Pudong Public Transport Company Shangnan Branch Wang, Binfeng said these buses are able to run nearly 10 hours per day, full-loaded and with A/C on, quite suitable for the transit operation.
Sunwin buses with supercapacitors brought in their 2010 version an autonomy from 3 to 6 km. Supercapacitors are then charged on each bus stop with a pantograph (like a tram). 30 seconds are enough to charge the bus to 50% and it takes 80 seconds to charge to 100%.
Watch a supercapacitor bus being recharged at a bus stop.
Take a ride on a Supercapacitor Electric bus
World's fastest charging electric bus : 10 seconds thanks to supercapacitors
A new electric bus was put into operation on July 28th, 2015 in China. Its special feature: a full charge in just 10 seconds thanks to its supercapacitors.
This bus travels a line of 11 km with 24 stops in Ningbo city on the East coast of China. In the next three years, no less than 1,200 of these buses will be used for public transport in the city, where the electric bus plant is located.
This bus is recharged at stop stations, while passengers getting on or off the bus. Each charge allows the bus to travel up to five kilometers.
In addition, the bus consumes 30 to 50 percent less energy than other electric vehicles.
The bus is equipped with CSRCAP supercapacitors produced by the Chinese company "Ningbo CSR New Energy Technology", a subsidiary of CSR Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive.
These supercapacitors are able to operate 12 years and endure over a million charge, even under high temperatures. The supercapacitor technology is more reliable, faster and more durable than batteries that can not usually withstand a lot more than 500 recharge cycles.
Thanks to supercapacitors, the opportunity charging electric buses is emerging as the most reliable and most economic way to develop a fleet of electric buses within cities.
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Source: Sunwinbus.com
Supercaptech.com
Chinabuses.org