Hyundai exhibits these days in Korea with its first double-decker electric bus, a project that began in 2017 and has had the support of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport of the Asian country. This bus promises an autonomy of 300 km in each load -50 km less than the Chinese super sales BYD e6- and is equipped with a 384 kWh, high-efficiency, water-cooled battery.
It is presented in the middle of a ‘boom’ in the electric bus sector, which in countries such as China are beginning to dynamite the demand for oil.
This two-floor bus has a capacity for 70 passengers; 11 seats on the first floor and 59 seats on the second floor; It has a length of 12,990 mm and a height of 3,995 mm. It works with an independent suspension on the front axle and on the rear axle, it has a 240 kW engine that minimizes losses, according to Hyundai.
Its 384 kWh battery takes about 72 minutes to charge and has several safety features, such as dynamic control, collision avoidance assist or lane maintenance assistance to prevent accidental lane departure when road markings are detected.
On the other hand, the front camera of the vehicle helps detect an imminent collision and avoid impacts or minimize damage when braking autonomously. A bus at the moment we do not know if it will reach production, as Hyundai has not given details regarding the future of the project.
Meanwhile, the electric bus market is growing and the best example is found in the Chinese city of Shenzen, where the buses of the national manufacturer BYD flood the streets; specifically there are 17,000.
Data from Bloomberg estimate that 99% of the 350,000 electric buses operating globally are in China, an expansion that by the end of the year could take 270,000 barrels of diesel a day out of the market, most in the communist country.
In contrast, in Europe, only 1.6% of buses are electric, although there have been significant steps in cities such as London, which has proposed that by 2037 all its legendary red buses are electric or Delhi, whose Government recently approved an order of 1,000 electric buses.
