A plan to ditch 8,000 diesel buses in Sydney for an electric fleet is being delayed by at least five years.
The NSW government had initially committed to the Greater Sydney fleet going green by 2030, as part of its plan to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
The promise by former transport minister Andrew Constance in 2019, was characterized as a “bold” move by his successor during a budget estimates hearing at Macquarie Street. [Bold, links added]
Minister for Active Transport, Rob Stokes told the hearing he now expected “net zero across our fleet by 2035.”
“Bold goal to have 8,000 buses turned electric by 2030, that’s now not the case looking at the budget,” Labor MP John Graham said.
“That’s correct,” Mr. Stokes said.
One hundred electric buses were bought in the 2021-22 financial year with another 200 purchased this financial year.
In June’s budget, the NSW government committed to investing $218.9 million over the next seven years to support the move.
Mr. Stokes was asked by Mr. Graham whether “this is initiating the procurement process of only 1,100 buses over seven years”, 6,900 less than initially promised.
“The whole point of committing to targets is to seek to reach them and then to … ‘build castles in the sky’ and then go about building foundations underneath them … that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Mr. Stokes said.
“I’m not going to criticize a former minister, but I certainly think he put out a bold goal and we’re now doing that strategic work and it does appear that we’re going to reach that target [8,000 buses] a little later than he suggested.”
Mr. Stokes said the government was currently going through the business case, which includes ensuring charging infrastructure is made available.
The NSW government confirmed outer metropolitan regions were expected to transition to electric buses by 2040 and regional NSW by 2047.
In 2019, Mr. Constance said he wanted to follow the lead of London, where “drastic action” was taken after “toxic fumes” were revealed to be causing health problems.
Read rest at ABC
Heavy vehicles get poor mileage when driven stop and go, ie city driving. EV buses must be heavier than conventional diesels. Tons of batteries under empty seats. How many politicians have an engineering background or a degree in physics?
How about making their Grand Pooh-Bahs in the Land Down Under start walking to their parties and meetings
It matters not what side of politics these clowns come from, they are telling us we will have electric buses [and electric government cars], while they work towards shutting the coal fired power stations. Do they understand that these electric vehicles need a stable, reliable supply of electricity to run them? What do they know that I don’t? One does not need an electrical engineering degree to work this out.
These same clowns still haven’t explained to us why we are bothering to do this anyway. Although I note that Mr Constance said he wanted to follow the lead of London, where “drastic action” was taken after “toxic fumes” were revealed to be causing health problems.It is highly likely that London buses or where ever these toxic fumes were found, needed servicing but the clowns over in the UK wouldn’t understand that.
Yes, we are being led by clowns. No doubt about that.