First three electric buses hit the road in Victoria government trial

Volgren’s new electric buses at the plant in Dandenong, Melbourne.

The first three electric buses in Victoria’s Zero Emissions Bus trial have hit the road in Sunbury.

The buses use solid-state Lithium Metal Polymer (LMP) batteries rather than lithium-ion batteries used in other electric vehicles.

Bus operator Donric is the owner of the new set, and is one of six operators in the three-year, $20 million trial of 50 electric and two hydrogen fuel cell buses across Melbourne, Traralgon and Seymour.

The buses use a Volvo BZL Electric bus chassis.

The trial will collect a range of data on charging needs for different types of routes and how they stack up against the diesel fleet financially.

“We’re investing in greener technologies, supporting local manufacturing and providing passengers with quieter and more comfortable journeys as we drive down pollution and remove noisy diesel buses from our public network for good,” said public transport minister Ben Carroll.

From 2025, all new public transport buses must be zero emission vehicles as the state retires some 4,000 diesel buses from the fleet.

On top of the 52-strong trial, Melbourne-based Kinetic, which won a bid for one third of Melbourne’s metropolitan bus network in 2021, will introduce 36 electric buses to the city’s fleet by mid-2025.

Victoria bus maker Volgren is making almost all of the bodies for the electric buses in its Dandenong South factory, although Custom Denning is responsible for a trial bus that has already been plying the routes around Sunbury.

Bus expert Paul Aldridge gave Volgren’s body designs his approval in 2020 when Transdev ran a 12-month trial of a “route bus”: a Volgren Optimus body on a Chinese BYD DR9A 860 (K9) chassis, with 16 battery packs adding up to 324kWh capacity, giving it around 300km and using a little under 1kW of power per kilometre driven.

RenewEconomy is seeking comment from the office of the transport minister.