This Is The Toughest Challenge For Adopting Electric Buses For Public Transportation

After winning the tender, Nova Bus, a subsidiary of Volvo Group handed over 541 long-distance electric buses to Toronto City, Canada, May 29, 2013. (Doc. Novabus)

JAKARTA - The adoption of electric buses to become public transportation is still facing a number of difficulties that need to be overcome. PT Chakra Giri Energi Indonesia CEO and founder Herman Huang revealed that one of the challenges in efforts to adopt electric vehicles on public transportation is the high cost of purchasing electric-based bus transportation modes.

"The comparison of the price of electric buses tends to be more expensive than diesel buses, this is also a challenge," said the founder of a startup engaged in renewable energy as a provider of this database and consultation service in a webinar, Wednesday, quoted by ANTARA, June 14.

In terms of electric buses, according to Herman, by adopting electric-based buses, the autobus company must pay more.

Referring to the data he presented, the price of electric buses is around Rp. 5 billion, while the price of diesel-fueled buses is only around Rp. 2 billion.

The high price of electric buses is due to the high price of the components used, especially batteries.

According to him, the high price of electric buses is quite burdensome for autobus companies, considering that many of them have limited financial capacity.

Therefore, Herman considered that there needed to be special mechanisms applied to assist autobus companies in adopting electric vehicles.

"To adopt it means the autobus company must spend more money, unless there are special mechanisms to help autobus companies adopt electric buses," he said.

Herman further said that although it has an expensive price, the purchase of electric buses presents a number of benefits, including cheaper operational costs than conventional fuel buses.

In the data presented, the estimated operational costs that must be incurred for electric buses per 10 years (200 km/day) are around Rp. 2.3 billion, while diesel-fueled buses are Rp. 4.6 billion.

"So indeed, on an operational cost, there is saving, the second is indeed helping to reduce emissions," he concluded.