The Fifth Estate attended the Bus Industry Confederation’s national bus and coach show in Brisbane this week.
What surprised us was the considerable “wokeness” that the top end of this nation’s bus industry had to offer. All buses on display were fully electric, from unreleased fleets in New South Wales, such as the Go Zero Group, to the lighTrams, soon to be known in Brisbane as the “Metro”, which we thought closely resembled the trackless trams in Perth.
- See this article from Peter Newman about the unveiling of trackless trams
“But it’s a little bit different,” said a media rep from the City of Brisbane. On the question of how different, we have yet to discover and will leave that for its manufacturer, Hess, to unpack at some stage.
Julian Ostling, chief executive of Mahu City Express, a New Zealand-based zero emissions luxury coach service, was on the ball, saying that one factor that challenges the decarbonisation agenda was the industry’s need to get its message to property investors and managers who can provide access for electric vehicles charging infrastructure.
John Featherstone, the chief commercial officer at GoZero Group, the company behind Nexport (an electric bus company) and Foton Mobility (manufacturers of electric trucks and hydrogen buses), also had lots to say.
There were insights on the kinetic features of the electric buses, which involved generating energy every time a bus breaks to a regional bus rollout in NSW to precincts built around electric transport. An example was the group’s client, Westside Christian College.
Then there was Yutong’s product, ZEB, and new technologies manager Luke Edwards, who gave us a private presentation on the techy bits of how their buses operate; the big focus, he said, is that the bus fleets have been built to adapt the extreme weather. That’s something that has always been on China’s agenda, with its routinely high and low temperatures that are among the most extreme on the planet, along with some of the roughest terrains. In that context, the potholes of Australia’s roads are not much of a challenge.
Last but not least, our Greenlister Hailo was a surprise guest at the expo, with Santiago Velasquez, along with his guide dog Trey, updating us on the startup’s intention to catch the eyes of all buses across the nation.
Apart from the amazing technology, the feeling that there was hope in our future and the good chats we had all around in the strangely intimate style of public transport expos, there was also the unveiling of Yutong’s newest minibus. This addition to the transport offering had only been in Australia for two weeks, and many Yutong employees said the unveiling was the first time they had seen the minibus – just to add to the excitement.
See a video of the unveiling below, complete with speeches and dramatic music fit for a showing of Star Wars.
More to come. Watch this space for more from The Fifth Estate.
The Fifth Estate travelled to Brisbane from Sydney as a guest of Chinese bus manufacturers Yutong and its Australian distributor VDI.