Just thought this was interesting since it was GM related...
Power to the Port Authority, as in electric power.
Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette
The Port Authority's first hybrid electric bus pulls out of the Swissvale Park and Ride Lot to make a run to Wilkinsburg on the Martin Luther King Jr. Busway yesterday.
Officials unveiled the first of six new low-floor, hybrid electric buses, the latest experiment in transit technology, in a ceremony at the Swissvale Station on the Martin Luther King Jr. East Busway yesterday -- Earth Day.
The bus was to be placed into regular service today on the 71D Hamilton route departing Wilkinsburg at 4:53 a.m. By July, all six hybrids will be in service.
The bus is basically identical in form and function to 225 diesel-powered, low-floor buses now in service, but it runs on a combination of electricity generated on board and stored in batteries on the roof, plus diesel fuel for a smaller engine.
As a result, the hybrid buses are quieter, faster accelerating from a stop, more fuel efficient and, most of all, environmentally cleaner. The hybrids emit only 10 percent of particulates, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons as traditional buses.
"It's a great ride. No herky-jerky motion," Port Authority Chief Executive Officer Paul Skoutelas said, predicting hybrid buses that are still a national experiment represent the technology of tomorrow.
The authority's last experiment with five natural gas-powered buses during the 1990s didn't work out. The buses were recently retired after 12 years of service that showed operating costs to be the same as traditional buses. Lower emissions were negated as new, lower-sulphur fuels were introduced and the technology of diesel-powered engines improved.
The six hybrid buses are costing $3.2 million, but the money is not coming out of the cash-strapped operating budget. Rather, the authority is using a combination of special federal and state grants available for trying alternative fuels.
By comparison, six regular low-floor buses sell for about $2 million.
U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Swissvale, who helped the Port Authority obtain funds for the hybrids, said the combination diesel/electric-powered buses are an interim step to more fuel-efficient technology in the future.
"If all the passenger vehicles in the United Sates were all hybrids today, we would have zero dependence on foreign oil," he said. Doyle recently bought a Ford Escape hybrid in which he's been averaging 33 miles a gallon.
The hybrid bus, weighing about 14 tons empty, doesn't do as well. But its 260-horsepower diesel engine, when combined with electric motors in the special drive unit, is expected to average 6.4 miles a gallon, or about 40 percent more than wholly diesel-powered buses.
The bus has a regenerative braking feature, meaning almost all deceleration comes from the bus driver removing the foot from the "gas pedal." As the bus slows, the generator converts vehicle energy into electrical energy, stores it and reuses it to start accelerating again.
The buses use large-capacity, nickel metal hydride batteries mounted on the roof. They do not require external charging and are supposed to last six years.
The roof-mounting is about the only distinguishing mechanical characteristic on the low-floor hybrid bus, there's one other telltale sign: pictographs on the sides extolling the virtues of electric buses and cleaner air.
If you can't figure out the pictographs, look on the rear engine cover of the bus, where the answers are written out.
All hybrid buses will be used on routes operating out of the East Liberty garage, where a special fueling station has been established for the "ultra-low-sulphur" diesel they burn. That's a downside; the cost of the new low-polluting, premium brand sold this week for $2.30 a gallon, compared to $1.75 for the low-sulphur diesel fuel used in the authority's other 950 buses.
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