We barely made it through the Arizona desert |Battery Electric Double Decker Coach
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- čas přidán 7. 09. 2024
- We left the hustle and bustle of California and ventured into the sparse desert or Arizona where EV chargers are far and few between. We almost got stranded out in the 114 degree heat.
Check out Vlog #3 of my cross country adventure in the All Electric Double Decker Motor Coach.
Check out ABC Companies Short capturing our cross country trip
• Cross Country in Elect...
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Maybe the electrical plug should be on both sides of the bus.
Good god, the charger fried the board on the bus??
Having to take Uber to and from the charging station...
I’m thankful I have a Tesla and haven’t had any issue on my roadtrips charging
I'm glad my car and truck run on diesel as a bus should. Lol. From watch you I understand most bus companies would have there own charges. Remake a update video in five years to tell how progress has been. Enjoy your channel. Thank you James.
James, you have amazing patience!! I can’t even imagine the frustration! Your videos are amazing! Thank you for bringing us all along for the trip and thank you for keeping it real!
He has patience on camera. Probably a lots of cursing that was edited out!
Things always work out when you put the cart before the horse!!!!
The day comes must have separate charging stations for larger vehicles. Like Loves has pumps for semi-buses so blocking cars won’t be a problem. Pho looks great
I'm Brazilian from UK and transport enthusiasts. You are very patient. Always you make a great job. Big hug James!!!
Thank you! much appreciated.
James, imagine doing this with paying passengers onboard. You'd have had a mutiny by now!
Concerning the guy around the 15 minute mark who was pissed you were charging…. I’m glad you didn’t take any shit from him. Like you said, you had no choice but to position the bus like you did to charge it. Get the same thing when you get diesel at a gas station. Besides, you were there first.
They’re experiencing high call volume because everybody is having problems with their stupid equipment.
Lol 😂
If you hang up, then the problem (you), goes away.
I'm a new Subscriber. From New Zealand. Tho I'm not a Bus Driver as of yet. I'm a huge enthusiast of the industry. I am absolutely amazed at your patience and calmness when people expressed there annoyance at something beyond your control. That charging ports must be a nightmare for many in big veichles. Our Urban buses have all gone electric.
hey james my name is charlie like your videos send me more videos i you driving the buses
It makes me angry they just don't answer their phones and/or take no responsibility. I'm trying to find some information to maybe buy a van Hool bus for our establishment someday in the Netherlands (eu). I'm glad I was always helped with electric profiders in our country but.. They should atleast be ready to answer calls, because what if you have 69 passengers on board. This is crazy. Thank you for this video, I'm still excited tho!
sir james, that bus looks so sleek and rad
I will watch all the episodes you post. In spite of everything that happened along the way, if you asked the children if they had a fun time, and they said yes, then “Mission Accomplished”.
I think after the first day, I would have rented a chase car.
What an eye opener. I'm glad you showed us the part of ev's that no one else will.
Sometimes it pays to be a pessimist. You were so sure that the charger was working and then go to bed. Then it goes ahead and does that. Unfortunately life in this world is like that. Great optimism then sudden collapse. But ultimately, you folks made it. Look forward to more of these James.
I just became a class b holder Monday with my passenger and school bus endorsements
Just wanted to say I love your videos and look forward to getting out there with a Coach maybe I’ll see you on the road somewhere brother✌🏾✌🏾
Clearly the infrastructure isn’t ready for this type of technology, but bus is great. Not for a cross country trip (but you have to get home somehow). let’s give it a few years and see if the infrastructure accommodates electric buses
Without an over-the-road charging system, I don’t think battery-electric will be the way to go for long-distance commercial vehicles. Hydrogen fuel cell would seem to make more sense.
Your patience is admirable. If it was me, I would struggle. If it was me with my family, I would lose it completely. Bravo and thanks for taking us along.
You're more patient than I am. At this point Van Hool Corporate should've pull the plug on this as it kills their credability in the industry to keep making a mockery of the project and honestly placing you and all the family in Jeopardy. If Heat affected it as much as I've seen so far. It was a rolling fireball just waiting for the correct bump to ignite a short.
Ford CEO just said EV's are not for everyone. My state banned sales of new gas powered cars and light trucks in a few years. We will NEVER see that come to fruition!
The bus wasn’t the problem.
This isn't a problem with the bus. This is a problem with Electrify America. They are horrible. The bus wouldn't be operated cross country like this. Its designed to be charged at its depot not at public chargers.
You passed by my house I live in downtown riverside
at this point I will be an a hospital for the insane people, my hat go of to you brother.
This is a nightmare scenario with broken chargers etc. Seems to be the same all over the world. I live in the UK and trying to find a working charging port is brutal. Personally the government's need to phase E vehicles is gradually as there is too many and not enough chargers
Interesting that its the same all over the world. Thank you for sharing
Was just watching these videos again. Where is the next video after this one? Wanted to see what happened with the circuit board.
first here i hope everyone has a great day
The bus is nice but i hate charging that monster !! How is the energy going to help us in the future
What a nightmare. Infrastructure has a very long way to go along with much improved battery technology to shorten charge time and range.
Electric Busses are not meant for cross country travel obviously. And the charger fried the charging control board. Obviously Electrify America has some MAJOR ISSUES with a. Their chargers & b. COUSTOMER Service
James did you miss the Europe Busworld 2023, the Marcopolo G8 double-decker miss you.
I thought about that too. Indeed that’s a nice coach. That NEOPLAN double decker. I’m sure James would love to go wherever whenever but we have to remember he’s got a job and family obligations too.
Just subscribed to the CZcams channel. Welcome to the future of travel 🤣🤣electric vehicles are not the answer .
Thank you for the sub. Welcome aboard
The world isn't ready for electric buses
Neither is the grid.
Nor millions of cars and trucks thanks to dictator newson
@@dvaritek434I feel bad for Americans. The world used to look up to you as innovators and world leaders. You used to be inventors and entrepreneurs making the world envious and hungry for the "American Dream". But all we hear about around the world is how you're struggling with things other countries are so much more advanced in. Isn't it sad for you that your country doesn't even have a grid capable of electric vehicles?
@@bright-side-news very sad. What you said is pretty much true. America has some unique problems. Most of them revolve around policy. I am not sure where you are from, but we spend a huge pct on defense so the rest of the western world does not have to. We also supply tons of energy to the western world too. If the united states retreated into itself and really invested in itself, we could still be that entrepeneurial pipeline. But being stretched to maintain influence causes stress and that shows in our politics and our lack of innovation.
Nobody wants them, it's a waste of materials. What would've happened if they didn't make it, now ur stuck in the hot desert a great possibility of people passing out from heat exhaustion low water.
This is probably a dumb question, why doesn’t the bus have multiple charging ports? It seems like ports on each side front and back as well as on the front and back with capability of multiple charges going at the same time would be ideal.
Also, we no solar? It seems like even if your charging station shuts down a little bit of charge from solar to help with ancillary would be helpful. .
So you want the bus manufacturer to use more materials and conductors on all 4 corners of the bus to make it more convenient for their customers? Are you on drugs? Do you need to be drug tested?
I think ports on the four corners is a valid point. If EV buses are gonna be evolved over the years, a convenient point to plug it in is worth it.
@@jollygreen4639 If there is going to be superchargers for Tesla Semi and buses, it will probably be pull thru type, like what you see at Pilot and Flying J for their diesel pumps.
That’s if and when those charging stations for buses and trucks come about. By that time, design of EV buses will have changed many fold as things evolve. For this bus James is driving and for an application of more than just local driving, that being charter work, the four corners ports are a valid point for charging at stations like he was at. That’s my two cents.
@@jollygreen4639 If these were actual paying customers, they would have demanded a refund already. There is no DC fast charging infrastructure for buses. Pepsi is able to charge their Semis because they installed DC chargers at their depots and manufacturing plants
I'm sorry but the video really shows how electric will not work. The constant charging and waiting around when you could be moving plus all the aggravation of trying to get some form of technical support (2+ hours of being on hold).
My question is in terms of on-duty hours for CDL drivers: how are charging times counted on your clocks because it can be hours long? It seems like you cannot go more than 250 miles before needing a multiple hour stop to charge.
Its a first, but we have a long way to go to get from 3 hour charges. That would be insane
I would have left their electric bus there for them to worry about and gone home.
So the final FOUR hour drive, you needed to stop for THREE to charge, but the first or so hour it wasn't even charging and you had to move off.
That four hour drive turned into half a day.
It'd be one thing if you were doing excursions and could easily stop for three hours while people took in some sights.
Though with the sheer size of the roof, could they not add some efficient solar panels to the roof to add a small level of charge while you're driving, while looking for a charger and also trying to get one to operate.
We have propane powered fork lifts. I asked someone why not an EV version since those would be ideal you would think. Well the long and short is that you would have to buy two. One to use and the other to charge. The batteries are way to heavy and cumbersome to swap out like you can with a propane version. Plus the electric versions they considered were crapola.
What I learned from this video: Don't ever get an electric vehicle.
Wait wait wait, back up! Did I seriously see Minnesota played on a Bus owned by a Illinois Based Charter Service? (Peoria Chargers)
So this bus I drove through this cross-country trip was not owned by Peoria Charter. ABC companies let us borrow it to do the trip. It's owned by ABC companies which is headquartered out of Winter garden Florida. But they have several locations one of being in Minnesota.
@@JWangvlogs oh wow that makes a lot of sense now that's pretty cool if they let you do that cross-country trip with that. So I watched this clip where you guys barely made it out of CA finally got to Tucson AZ, ARE THERE MORE EPISODES TO COME BECAUSE I AM AT LIKE THIS ONCE A MONTH OLD
@@littletrucker89 yes I will be releasing the rest of the trip soon ☺️. Thank you for watching and for your comments
This video is the poster child for why almost every manufacturer is going to re-engineer their vehicles to work with Tesla's supercharger network. EA has been a disaster since the day 0, because VW was forced to do something as a penalty condition, not because they wanted to succeed.
I was today years old when I learned the origins of EA. It explains everything.
No, this is a poster child for why gasoline and diesel, are the only way to power our transportation.
@@TheBadCivilServant That can change, if the rest stops, like Pilot Flying J and TravelCenters would install DC fast chargers to service interstate buses and trucks
Greetings, friend. I follow you frequently. In light of this difficult and drawn-out trip, do you still believe that electric buses are a viable option until you have a mega charger that would allow you to recharge a bus in 15 minutes-a feat that is currently unheard of-and resume driving with your passengers? And at 14:35 a guy made a proper statement THIS THING IS NOT A PROPER THING TO MAKE ELECTRIC 😂
Unless "they" start stringing pairs of 600-volt wire over every highway and every street in America, this is just stupid. There is nothing wrong with gasoline and diesel. There are hundreds of thousands of pumps across America, in every city, every town, on almost every block. You pull up, you refuel in a few minutes, are you're gone. The only problem is, that doesn't help corrupt politicians who are personally invested in these electric outfits (until just before they go bust like Proterra, of course).
Long live gas
They should have solar panels on the roof of the bus. That would save a ton of headaches.
The current solar panel technology is not there yet, the solar system couldn't produce enough useful amps to make much of a difference, you'd be sitting for several sunny days waiting on a full charge.
First you did a wonderful job second I like watching your videos i'd like to become a bus driver myself third I think they need to make extension cords or start realizing that larger vehicles will be using charging points or change the system around a little better so it's much better because if people can't get electric cut their cars they're not gonna buy electric cars and fourth I wanted to ask at a double decker bus any doffrent then a regular style? They to me look like they might be bigger they might have a larger height and I don't know if there's any other restrictions to driving or endorsements that I would need
I'm only 5 mins in, but you've waited like what, 4 hours now? 4 hours wasted charging? Wave of the future they say?
Oh, I watched another 30 seconds and found out it only charged 10 mins then on hold for an additional 45.... never will I buy an electric anything
Hello I watch alot of your video, so I just wanted to let you no, your in a new york long Island Newsday paper nice picture, I just don't know how to attach it here for you?
What!?! Seriously? Can you email me? Jwang@peoriacharter.com
@@JWangvlogs ok
Electric Buses, but also Electric Semis....lol.
Hi J
For the time being, it looks like electric buses will have to make do with shorter, in-city routes, where no charging is needed - ever - except for overnight at the bus depot.
In order to make electric buses - and electric trucks - viable for cross country trips, you're going to need special truck-oriented charging stations that are both physically designed for oversized vehicles and equipped with much faster charging speeds. It is clear that the designers of the existing charging stations thought only about passenger cars, and the idea of a bus-sized vehicle wanted to plug into them was never even considered.
That said, I don't think one should give up on the idea of electric long-distance buses entirely. I know Tesla is working on so-called Megawatt chargers specially designed to allow electric semi trucks to hop from charger to charger across the country. Hopefully, whatever charging infrastructure eventually gets built for semi trucks will also work for double-decker buses. If it does, the trip experience would be improved dramatically.
It shouldn’t make any difference if it’s TESLA, ELECTRIFY AMERICA, or ELMER J. FUDD CHARGE LAND. It should be expected to work as designed.
For long haul trucks, they should design a standardized hot swappable battery pack where a truck can pull up to a machine which does the swap automatically and within 5 minutes; to be competitive the stop has to be comparable to a regular diesel stop. For busses, they need to have a larger battery capacity, stopping every couple of hours to recharge for hours is ridiculousness; the area where the diesel engine would be should be the cargo storage area, the basement compartments should be all battery to get maximum range.
I still think they gave up on the idea of hybrids too soon for buses especially over the road coaches. A plug in hybrid would provide peace of mind when charging stations would be far and few between. Plus it would be great with extreme heat and cold to keep the heat and AC going.
So the EV is not good in the cold and not easy to charge in the heat, we still have a long way to go.
Yea that electric car and buses was not thoroughly thought thru. To time consuming and they should just keep buses on Diesel or gas.
Ive said it once an Ill say it again for the people in the back, they should have done what Telsa did an did quality over quantity. But no, In america some companies just do faster cheaper to be number 1 and the customers end up suffering in the end :( We also still even with Tesla superchargers dont have the infrastructure to handle electric vehicles
Thank you for pointing out the absurdity of these boondoggles.
What company in its right mind would buy one of these things? Unless the government made them, of course.
And I'm willing to wager these buses - "powered" by bankrupt Proterra I might add - cost twice what a regular, run-of-the-mill diesel bus would cost.
This is why Governments and "Anti-Oil" protesters drive me nuts thinking countries can easily convert to EVs and other green technologies without being serious with the supporting infrastructure and incentives. I've had an EV for 7 years, and experience the same issues with chargers being unreliable, unavailable, or just totally non-existent. The planning for chargers should have included large vehicles, because you need to think ahead.
Chargers for large vehicles should be at truck stops and rest areas. The locations they had to stop in for these videos are in malls and shopping centres never designed for large vehicles because thats not how people come to these locations generally.
Can it designed to two charging ports to speed to charge?
Would be nice
Wish they threw in an charging extension cord for situations like that.
Extension cords do not exist for these type of plugs unfortunately
wow some time charging no good if you was on a tour will not be any good for big rigs
I’m guessing someone “pulled the plug” on this tour since there haven’t been any more episodes and you’re now posting trips with diesel coaches in Chicago. Was the charger board ultimately repaired on site or did the bus get towed back to California?
You must have missed several episodes. The charger was fixed very soon after that and they made the whole trip with a welcome reception in Florida. The episodes should all be on his channel.
@@crabbymilton390 Yeah, I had just starting watching James and didn't realize he had a second Motorcoach World channel that chronicled the rest of the trip. Glad they made it but what a horrible look for Electrify America! Happy to see Tesla is now being adopted as the standard.
@@neddannenberg100 Well the market will ultimately determine things. I’m not ready for the BEV hubballo. Sure for short trips around town and suburbia they may be fine. But not to go too far out of town. I would have been the most miserable old crab if I was in James’ spot with equipment not operating. He takes it well and has a great sense of humor. It was great that he took his wife and kids along plus Dennis and his wife.
Wouldn’t a hybrid set up work better.
Non-zero emissions isn’t a new thing.
@@shiftfocus1 The problem with that is it makes way too much sense. No worries about the heat and AC crapping out because the batteries are too low and no reliable chargers in sight.
I don't think anyone should leave a vehicle unattended while refueling gas or electric. The charger could have malfunctioned and started a fire.
Filling with diesel, yes I agree, should not leave the area. Maybe clean the front windows, headlights, taillights etc. Maybe 15-20 minutes? And you’re on duty not driving. But staying while charging an EV bus for 2, 3, 4 hours? And every few hundred miles? You’d be out of hours so quick, you’d need a team of drivers.
What a royal pain those electric vehicles are! I drove an electronic taxi..anything below -10 and it would lose half its range with the first 15 mins of travel. They are totally useless at -20. Completely unrealistic for cold weather
James ... do you ever curse, you have way more patience then me, I would throw in the towel by now and say f... this crap. I mean you spend as much time charging as driving. AMERICA is not ready for this yet.
Lol yes I curse much more than I want to. I have the luxury of editing it out 😁
@@JWangvlogs I am effing every broken/slow charge station just watching your vid. You're doing a huge favor exposing this for possible "go green" crowd EV bus owners. I am sure that ABC did not say a word about charging station issues to you and why would they, they just want to sell their product, rest is up to you. Hope new owners you delivered this but to plan on using it locally only, that is all it's good for.
Once again, those gravel islands are useless. They just take up space in parking lots. What do people eat before bedtime to come up with such lunacy?
In my opinion, the world could definitely use more electric buses and trucks. It’s just that the infrastructure in some spots (Most importantly the U.S.) is currently lacking.
However, with advances in grid and infrastructure technology and battery technology, we are closer than we think to having smaller more efficient batteries with longer ranges, as well as more prevalent higher power chargers in less populated areas.
Some might say “Oh that’ll never happen!”
Watch this space.
2035.
James, I think I w byould have literally thrown the camera. The Electrical Infastructure is so not capable of handling EV Busses or Semi Trucks. This just makes me laught at Tesla as the have a Semi they claim does over 300 miles on 1 charge pulling hills, mountains and a fully loaded trailer.
I'd personally never own any type of a EV. At least not for a couple decades. Way more improvements and advancements need to occur like 1,000+ kWPH chargers, the ability of using a App to reset the charging station your at to prevent 2+ hour hold times, the ability to run diagnostics through the app for the chargers would be great too. I mean like the ability to use a QR Code scanner on the machine to sync it with a App, then of a issue arrives it tells you the issue, the common fix's for the issue and tells you if it's a issue with the Charger, Power Cord, Master Plug Head, or your vehicle. Hmmm, maybe you should reach out to that EV App guy and give him some of these suggestions.
But hey, on a positive note, I truly dispose Evehicles more now. 2+ hour charge time, 2, 3 or 4 charges a day, $100+ per charge. That's $400 a day in charging costs. My diesel Semi burns that in diesel. It's not cost effective or anyway a time saver.
So what happened next is the trip over? Did you fix the bus?
I will be finishing this series soon. My production schedule got messed up due to how busy I got. One more Chicago Video coming then Ill be finishing up the cross country trip.
What a mess
@J Wang is this the last video we will see of this series? Also how did you fix the issue you said you had at the end of the video
I will be making more of this series. I came back from this trip with so much footage that it took so much longer than I anticipated to edit it all. And since then I've been on several trips vie vlogged that I wanted to release like the Chicago one I just released. My OCD is killing me that I'm releasing some videos out of chronological order but I hated to way to show my time in Chicago. Also. I noticed the view counts for my cross country trip was so very low. So its killing my motivation to spend the ungodly amount of hours editing it...
@@JWangvlogs Keep up your hard work I LOVE ALL YOUR VIDEOS
So how am I supposed to charge my Tesla cyber truck with a trailer?.
I think the world is not quite ready for electric vehicles
Such a bad example of the recharging system. Quickly turns off any interest in ev cars or trucks
They better stick EV tech back in the trash where they found it from the early 1900s and start seriously working on Hydrogen combustion technology
Im all for ev’s, but this is ridiculous.
Electric is not the way to go. We are being played by marketing.
Electrify America is the worst. Sorry you experienced such a major hassle while trying to use their network. You would have had better luck with EVgo, although they aren’t in as many places.
As for the bus, it’s nice but the charging is disappointing. It seems like it’s maximum charge rate is only 150 kW, which is very low for a 650 kWh battery.
I noticed you arrived at most charging stations with >50%. You definitely could have stretched the bus’s legs a bit more, although with the slow charging, it probably wouldn’t have helped very much.
Is ABC going to fix the bus and let you continue this adventure, or have you had enough hassle?
THIS is EXACTLY why EVs are no where near ready to be implemented.
Now you know why electric vehicle sucks, yes you save money but hours of time lost in arriving to your destination is crazy, also yes save on gas but spend your money in rental hotel because of the hours to charge 😫
Can't be charged at tesla charger sir?
Nope. Doesn't fit
@@JWangvlogs but tesla charger has ccs 2 type charger. Which type charger has to this bus?
@@mixmax61 not the same charger. We had to use electrify america chargers.
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏😞
This whole series on the electric bus is making electric vehicles and electric charging stations look terrible. Electric is a nice option but I don’t think it’s the answer to combustion engine vehicles.
I'm not impressed with them electric vehicles. How can waiting like that be profitable
I would NEVER do an EV much less a BUS.... sorry.... 2 hrs for that long.... NOPE
First of all I cannot believe you even wanted to do this with that bus. This video just shows why the USA is NOT READY FOR ELECTRIC VEHICLES. Not to mention the battery technology is far from being good enough right now.
I actually had a good time doing this. It was a experiment. The bus was great. The charging infrastructure was crap.
Thank God the charging station killed the bus. It was painful to watch this series with proof EV is not the future for a long time. Electrify America sucks as they are owned by Volkswagen. Let’s stick to hybrid diesels for the next 3 or 4 decades
This is why electric cars will not work currently. The infrastructure is NOT there yet.
It is utterly pathetic how bad EA is, but it doesn't surprise one bit either. VW doesn't want to do anything that even suggests they might have to change their status quo. Fighting for stagnation every step of the way to an EV future. Meanwhile Volvo is creating trucks that happily charge at well over 350kW all day and most other car manufacturers are seriously looking to build new platforms. Get a nice big bullbar for the bus and next time a stupid charger won't work just "accidentally" run into it, that'll likely get it fixed faster than trying to reach these morons on the phone. You guys really need to band together and get the larger coach companies to really raise a stink with regulators on this mess, because EA has obligations to fulfill and so long as no one complains they won't be held to them.
Pure junk.
Such a waist of time.
LOL! Electric vehicles are such a scam. I really don't understand why people buy them. Democrats! Hahaha
Avoid Electrify America at all costs. They suck.