The first 140 electric buses of the Chinese company Yutongmay have arrived in Athens on Sunday, but there is one major problem: Chargers for them were not purchased.
The State Audit Board believes that the contract for the purchase of bus chargers contains violations, so for now four OSY (road transport organization) charging stations will not operate. Instead, the buses will be charged at the trolleybus stations at Roufus and Attikis Square, starting with 38 buses in the trial period.
The electric buses have arrived at the port of Piraeus and should be on the roads in about a month. Two days earlier, 110 buses from the same manufacturer arrived with another ship at the port of Thessaloniki.
This is part of a large delivery of 550 (out of an initial 770) buses for Athens and Thessaloniki under a tender that is being held from 2021. According to Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Christos Staikouras, the buses should hit the streets at the end of April or in May.
An important issue that remains to be resolved is the installation of charging equipment in the parking lots where they will park. Until this time, they will be charged from 7 mobile chargers that are included in the delivery package of the buses, reports athenstransport.com.
In Athens, a temporary contractor has already been announced for the corresponding project to install chargers at 4 trolleybus stations (with a proposed price of 6,902,586.80 euros plus VAT), but control of the contract by the audit council is still pending.
Until all charging stations are installed, it is expected that 38 of the 140 electric buses will be put into service once the necessary tests have been carried out and a vehicle license has been obtained. A few days ago, tests began at OSY enterprises, and a test route was laid inside the vehicle depot.
The only problem left is where to get so much additional electricity, because each bus has a 200 kilowatt battery, which it will consume during the day, and, accordingly, it will need to be charged at the end of the trip.
What about power lines? Considering that black outs due to network overload are a common phenomenon in Greece in the summer, it would not be surprising if it turns out that there will be nothing to charge the buses with. In any case, the solution to the problem is until charging stations appear. And even after they appear, questions will pour in as if from a leaky bucket.
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