Southern Vectis is offering people living on and visiting the Isle of Wight a chance to glimpse into its zero-emission future this month. The local bus operator is welcoming 2 electric double-decker demonstrator buses to the Island – one of which is already on the Island – in preparation for ordering its brand new fleet of zero-emissions vehicles which are due to arrive by early 2026. The move follows Southern Vectis’ and Isle of Wight Council’s successful bid for funding from the Department of Transport’s latest ZEBRA (Zero Emission Bus Regional Area) scheme. Richard Tyldsley, Southern Vectis general manager, has said:
“The funding, combined with additional investment from Southern Vectis and Isle of Wight Council, means a total of £12.7m will be used to revolutionise our routes 1, 5 and 9,” “We are researching the best electric buses to invest in, so we have 2 different double decker demonstrators to monitor and assess. A Yutong U11DD is entering service on routes 1, 5 and 9 – and it will be with us for a month. “This will be followed by a Volvo electric bus. Further details on this bus are still to be confirmed, but we are expecting it to arrive at the end of June. “We are asking our customers for feedback on both buses – including how they compare to our existing diesel buses, whether they like the interior layouts, how they feel about the noise of the buses, and whether they are likely to travel more or less on the new electric buses. “This is an excellent opportunity for our drivers and customers to see what’s in store, when our new fleet arrives.”
For more information, and to leave feedback on the trial electric buses, visit islandbuses.info.
How is it zero emission when the electricity to charge them comes from a power station.
Try solar?
Solar doesn’t work a night or cloudy days
1) Most of the UK’s power comes from clean energy. Go look.
2) Even if it’s from fossil fuel it is a lot easier to clean the exhaust of a power station than a bus.
the only reliable clean energy is nuclear not coal,gas and wind and solar are not reliable enough.
According to the National Grid, 42.3 per cent of electricity from 2022 comes from fossil fuels compared to 35.9 per cent from renewable sources such as solar, wind, hydroelectric, nuclear power, and biomass, which comes from burning food, plants, and organic matter.
Get up to date. The mix has changed and fossil fuels now only account for 24.8%. We are heading in the right direction. Fossil fuels will not be used to produce any power in the UK by 2035.
What a load of tripe and a waste of money that could be used for something that would actually help islanders and their community. “Worlds ending so let’s tax the people more and make these stupid vehicles and that will fix it”. How ridiculous.
Cheaper Ferry fares is want us Islanders want, not electric buses
How much cheaper than £2 would you like the fare to be?
“How much cheaper than £2 would you like the fare to be?”
since when could you get a Ferry ticket for £2 ??
Oh yes, my mistake. I clearly missed the switch from slating the buses to moaning about ferries again.
£2 wouldn’t even get you a packet of crisps on the ferry.
Looks like a bus,all that money and yet ugliest bus ever.
They look ok to me, good driver visibility, a nice colour, and smooth sides with good alround passenger visibility
Yes, but you won’t be able to hear the damn thing as it comes around the corner, and you’re left standing there, gawping at your phone, while the passengers with for you to put the thing away.
Public money, private profits.
They receive money from the council because they have to subsidise vectis for the non profitable routes such as the 6, 12, 38, 37 etc so they can run as frequently as they do.
The buses may be zero emissions on the road, but the manufacturing process certainly isn’t, the transportation to get them here isn’t (Yutong vehicles are made in China) and neither is the source of the electricity which powers them.
I’ve nothing against electric vehicles, but we need to be honest about just how ‘green’ they are and to look at the whole picture, not just one isolated part of it.
Exactly this isn’t ‘green’.
We should buy diesel buses, they don’t have zero emissions when being built, transported or used either.
Like all road vehicles, buses aren’t zero. Zero emission only applies to the bus power plant. Almost 2,000 times more particle pollution is produced by tyre wear than is pumped out of the exhausts of modern cars. The tyre particles pollute air, water and soil and contain a wide range of toxic organic compounds, including known carcinogens and tyre pollution could rapidly become a major issue for regulators. This is way too futuristic for our science and technology and something the next generations to sort out. But zero emission motors is a good place to start.
Over it’s life time, the bus will emit less than half of carbon a diesel will. Also on top of that there are no particulate emissions from the EV.EV’s breaks last significantly longer than the diesel one, again producing a lot less pollution that you breath.
Cheap made in China rubbish
I’ll stick with my car and revving it to 5k before changing gear
Saw one of them in Newport yesterday. Quiet and not polluting the air around it. It’s a yes from me!
You better hope your not on it when it bursts into flames then!
Because diesel buses don’t???? The stats show a diesel vehicle is 50 time more likely to burst into flames.
You must be joking, the amount of pollution in the air given off by the punters at Newport bus station is enough to make you leave the buses to the bus wankas,,,
Stick to Diesel much safer, why change what works,
many EV Buses around the country have been catching fire.
Stick to a horse and coach I say, why change what works, plus they don’t catch fire.
In the past, yes. But Yutong buses are almost the pioneers of Ai bus hardware and software. Every aspect of the bus is constantly monitored; even the cells and nitrogen levels have built in safety guards that make electrical fires on board a thing of the past. Chinese bus drivers are amongst the most reckless ever as their pay structure is made by the amount of tickets sold. They drive people like cattle. Driving an electric is not the same as a conventional bus but Chinese drivers had no training. And for the past 3 years, about 60 electric buses have been subject to daily abuse in my district and still running fine. My location has to be the best testing ground ever for e-buses and they all pass. Not one single fire. 🙂
Yes, and one day the Chinese technology will spike the software and you’ll find you are on a one way trip into the Solent…
Because diesel buses don’t???? The stats show a diesel vehicle is 50 time more likely to burst into flames.
It would be nice if you considered buying ADL buses which are built in the UK instead of Chinese, and would compliment the Alexander Dennis products in you existing fleet.
You know ADL buy Chinese chassis and just build the coachwork, right?
It may say Dennis on the front, but the chassis, motors and battery are all Chinese.
They will more than likely buy ADL buses as that’s what their current fleet consists of (except for a couple of old Scania’s and the Optare Solos). This bus is just a demonstrator, as the article says.
Need to be tested in the winter.
Are they going to cope, lights, heating to current standards?
Of course they will. The manufacturer’s are not stupid.
Of course not, the manufacturer’s are Chinese and we all know what high quality they turn out.
Let’s hope there is more room for luggage etc. The existing buses are not laid out very well for suitcases & other bulky items. Get a baby buggy & someone with a dog plus a disabled person & there is no place for luggage.
They are mainly for carrying people. Ive never seen anyone leave their luggage behind or not been able to put it somewhere. Occasionally pushchairs and wheelchairs get on but everyone seems to manage. People with too much luggage take a taxi. And users of public transport are not the usual needy 5 star brigade where the slightest inconvenience sets them off.
The U11DD has 68 seats, with 43 upstairs and 25 in the lower, including four tip-ups across separate wheelchair user and buggy areas that utilises the emergency door on the lower deck, so unfortunately, no advance in what is available today. IMO, I would have preferred see the loss of 4 seats and seen a bigger buggy/luggage space. I was once on the No.9 from Tesco’s. At its first stop, the Busy Bee, 2 people got on, but refusal was made to a mother with a buggy as the allotted space already taken by a wheelchair and 2 buggies and was forced to walk back to Ryde. Why the mother was wasn’t allowed to take her baby and someone collapse the buggy was beyond me, as there were ample vacant seats at the rear, but driver’s decision.
Instead of wasting money on expensive electric buses, why doesn’t SVOC provide bus services to places St Lawrence and Havenstreet? Getting people out of their cars will save far more CO2 than an electric bus.
Non profitable. The council would have to subsidise them more to run the routes, so people would still have something to complain about. Can’t win when it comes to the general public.
Don’t go electric. Not worth it. Waste of time and money pissing around with electric vehicles. Besides they rape the world worse than any petrol or diesel vehicle.
One question, what is the fully laden weight of these buses?
The bridge at the bottom of Hunny Hill is 17ton.
13800kg unladen weight. I’d wager that fully laden, it would be well in excess of 17000. Not suitable for use on this route when it’s busy.
For 2 axle UK buses a maximum of 19.5 tonnes is permitted, regardless of fuel system. Wider tyres and active air road friendly suspension offset any more road surface damage, compared to their predecessors that were leaf sprung. Only buses are exempt from the 17 tonnes limit at Hunny Hill and other restricted areas.
That is interesting Kevin. How can a weight limit only apply to certain vehicles? I had always presumed a weight limit meant the structure was only capable of taking that weight and anything above could cause physical damage?
I had always presumed that this bridge was behind the reason the council didn’t go ahead with the high street pedestrianisation?
It sounds like one rule for the majority, buy another for the few.
Thanks for that information.
Driven by Unicorn PLC and carries a rainbow fire extinguisher..
What’s the model currently on route 1? It has great airline-style seats. I want them on 5 and 9!
Don’t catch fire in East cowes as it will burn to the ground by the time the first fire engine arrives from Newport
Can’t blame the E.C Arse on ist,
EVs catch fire by themselves
It’s the way they make them
Lol
Have any of the pen pushers who seem to think what a blilliant idea it all is, come out here in the real world and worked out how these things are supposed to charged up? You can’t just plug them into a 13amp socket and there are no proper charging outlets anywhere on the Island that can handle such a load. The national grid will be in constant burn out. There are no exising cable layouts that can handle so much amperage
Just a wild guess, but I reckon svoc will have chargers installed at depots.
Do they come fitted with self extinguishing battery fire devices ?
Passed one today, great to see they are in London Bus Colours.
How come no British firm can make a competitive electric bus? Anything to do with lack of access to components at EU prices? Or HM Gov’s failure to get a battery plant up and running? Or have we just given all the cash to Ben Houchen and his cronies?
We are suffering the consequences of a raft of Tory cock-ups, from Thatcher’s de-industrialisation to Sunak’s supine inactivity.
And we the sheep will vote them in again next time – you watch!
There is no alternative!
Another deluded socialist.
Because Conservatism has served us so well over the last 14 years, hasn’t it?
Do people like new things they don’t have to pay for? I will save you the time and effort, Yes, the answers yes.
Just make sure they work, and are value for money, and don’t end up the failed symbol of some halfwits ideological crusade at the tax payers expense.
£12.7 million, why? is the question here. Does it really cost that for buses and the infrastructure to charge them?
Looks nice, though I’ll probably have to remortgage the house to get on it.
So back in march of this year, LTN of London took all of its electric buses off 200 routes in London ,because of fears of batteries catching fire. £800 million pounds of rubbish! And you want us to be happy? Oh EV is the future! Oh no it isn’t, to bloody dangerous for starters!
Don’t need these great big double decker buses on this little island. Don’t care if there electric or not. So many serious accidents caused by these humongous vehicles. GET SMALLER ONES!!!
More climate b@llocks
Nothing wrong with Chinese. Was in Beijing recently which was once the dirtiest city on the globe. Now clean, quiet and civilised. Newport could be like that too.
Really, you, of course totally missed where the child labour for digging lithium comes from…
Among the UN findings was that Beijing’s discrimination against the Uyghurs was severe and systematic, including forced labor; large-scale, arbitrary deprivation of liberty; and coercive family planning policies. The committee also called on Beijing to immediately end violations of human rights and dismantle systems of forced labor in Xinjiang.
As long as they do not spontaneously combust as we’ve seen with other electric vehicles
Utter madness. Lithium causes enormous environmental damage, not to mention the fire risk. Best not use them on the 4 or 5 routes, because they will be well burnt out by the time the Fire Brigade arrive in East Cowes from Newport. When one bursts into flame in Newport Depot, while recharging and burns the depot to the ground with all the other buses, where are SV going to get an entire fleet of diesel buses from then?
Single deckers is what the island needs, not Double deckers.
Couldnt agree more, the 37 passes my house multiple times a day never any more than 2 or 3 people on it
Like any new buses that SV get they’re only on the Cowes routes yet again until they’re practically worn out.
Doubt if their survey will have a question about what the rest of us think about that.