Converting diesel buses to electric, now much easier

One of the major obstacles to decarbonising buses and the rest of public transport comes from the widespread use of diesel engines. Many buses used for this service are new, and withdrawing them from active service could be quite a big problem, since they still have many years of useful life ahead. But in England a solution has been found.

There is no need to withdraw them from service or buy zero-emission buses, which are quite expensive. It is enough to use the new Kleanbus modular platform and convert a diesel bus into one powered by electric motors. The cost of this operation is one fifth of that price, so the traction system can be replaced very affordably.

Kleanbus, the clean solution for urban transport

The Kleanbus platform is designed to accommodate a wide variety of motors, batteries and other components to suit customers’ needs and the vehicles to be converted. For now, and with not much information available, we already know that it will initially use permanent magnet-free electric motors. This means they will not use rare earths in their manufacture, such as neodymium or dysprosium. These are very expensive elements, and their extraction also causes a major environmental impact.

To carry out the conversion, Kleanbus receives the bus to be modified at its plant in the East of England. There they remove the diesel engine and all its components. They then scan the engine bay and obtain a complete image of the space. They recreate the vehicle as a virtual image using the platform created for this purpose, and then proceed to install the electric drive system.

After this, they carry out several tests and hand the vehicle over to the customer, with its corresponding certification. All of this takes around two weeks, a time that depends on the complexity, the model and the changes to be made. Any bus can undergo this process, and its cost is much lower than that of buying an electric bus. Furthermore, Kleanbus says that maintenance costs after the conversion are much lower.