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Rather than a battery powered bus where the batteries have to be replaced after a couple of thousand charges why not get the electricity straight from the grid and have a trolley bus?
The technology is proven. And then why not lay rails and have a tram? Much more efficient.
Would like more details, e.g. is 70000kwh from large rooftop PV installation just for one bus?
If we can crack the "Hyper-Capacitor" it would be possible to top-up/recharge these trolley buses during the 30 seconds or so they stop to pick up. That way you wouldn't need to lay any exposed power lines -just have a safely shielded charging point at every stop with smaller buried cables linking them... (Remember after PO steel, etc. is going to get expensive to manufacture so you need to look at 'least cost per mile').
I think the grid will be the last part of civilisation to go, literally.
Nick.
I don't know for sure but I would have thought that steel rails, copper cables would be cheaper over time than replacing batteries, rubber tyres etc. and also inherent efficiency of rail over road would swing the balance to electric rail.
I am suspicious of answers that rely on cracking new technological breakthroughs. Hitler was hoping for new technology to win the war as his 3rd Reich crumbled about him. I think we should look for answers from existing technology and at the same time commit as much as we can to research into new stuff.
We don't have much time left to muck around.
I think this is an excellent idea!
And there is no need for any new technology, the hyper capacitors are already here. I couldn't dig out the link, but I met a 2kWh supercapacitor already offered on the market - it weights about 3 tons, but shouldn't be a problem for large enough bus.
A car uses about 200Wh a mile, let's say a bus uses 500Wh a mile. This means 4 miles between stops maximum distance - more than enough for urban environments, so we could use even smaller capacitor banks.
IMO the real problem would be recharging on these interim stops - 2kwh for 30 second would draw 240kW - a respectable power equipment would be needed (but not nearly prohibitive).
No Need To lay tracks. I was born and lived in Sao Paulo Brazil where they had a very good system of electric buses that ran off the grid and they had regular air filled tires, nicer softer ride than steel on steel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUceP48F-so