Because an all-electric drivetrain is so much simpler than even a diesel drivetrain, various electric buses are anticipated to have 30-50% lower maintenance costs than diesel. Proterra advertises that their bus passed 750,000 mile simulated durability testing. They are one of the manufacturers participating in a pilot in the NYC MTA electric bus pilot with New Flyer as the other provider of electric buses for the pilot. New Flyer manufactured much of the MTAs existing diesel and hybrid diesel-electric fleet. Factlet: The MTA purchases 10% of all the buses sold in North America each year and currently has 5,700 buses in its fleet.
We used bio-diesel up in Vermont for the city buses in the summer. It doesn't work in the winter, we had to go straight diesel. Within a year they had to stop using Bio because it was causing a lot of problems with the engines, mostly the injectors if I remember correctly. Even at it's highest it was never more the 30% Bio-diesel and 70% regular.
That's because of your temperature...Do you keep a can of grease in the fridge instead of pouring it down the sink? The oil congeals...there should have been heaters on the tank to keep the fuel warm. Don't have that problem in Orlando.
Yes, that is why I said that we used Bio in the summer. We couldn't in the winter. But, that is even more significant because since we were able to use it only about 5 months out of the year, the quick discovery of problems is more poignant. There was a huge promotion locally about the use of Bio-Fuel. All the drivers and other employees had to wear Bio-diesel T-Shirts as part of a uniform to inform everyone of the new policy. I still have one of those T-shirts. They lasted a whole lot longer then the use of Bio-fuel. When they stopped using it, not a word was mentioned to anyone and to my understanding still hasn't been. Of course, by now they might have added a number of buses that were engineered to run the stuff. I don't know... I have been retired for pushing 9 years now and haven't kept up.
All diesels have return line fuel systems. They unused fuel that runs to the engine returns to the fuel tank warm. However, it can get cold enough that by the time it gets back to the fuel tank it is cold again. It doesn't take to long in -30 degrees to cool that stuff down. That said, we never even tried in the winter, we knew it would jell up. Even diesel itself can jell without a very expensive additive that is used during the cold weather.
Some of us actually do have professional experience designing and wrapping vehicles. There are absolutely "dos and don'ts", and the Pluto wrap, especially, is painful to look at.
The yellow color makes it look like the school buses I see all over town every day...with a Pluto head slapped onto them and a semi-clashing green stripe running down the side.
That might be true for some companies, but Disney has been successful in the past in pleasing virtually all of their fans, and to an incredible extent.
