2024-09-07 15:41:58
In Centre-Val de Loire, regular bus lines and schools will soon not be provided by coaches running on diesel. ” The fleet of our operators will be completely decarbonized by 2028″, promised François Bonneau, the socialist president of the Center-Val de Loire region, which lends 620 million euros each year to mobility, its main budget instrument.
To address this challenge, a program to electrify thermal coach fleets was launched this fall. Around twenty coaches switched to electricity, with a range of 150 kilometers, are gradually put into circulation until January 2025. The first in Europe.
A less expensive solution than buying new cars
« Retrofit is well suited to school buses, which travel, on average, 80 km in the morning and do not leave until mid-afternoon. Meanwhile, the driver has plenty of time to recharge the car. When defining the specifications with Retrofleet, the retrofitter, we asked for batteries that are not too heavy, which seems to be enough for this use. ” explained Gilles Lefebvre, director of Transdev in Centre-Val de Loire, the first regional operator with 850 coaches in payment on the regional network called “REMI”.
To decarbonize its fleet, Transdev has acquired new electric coaches for regular lines, such as Amboise-Tours, with high availability. But this new decarbonization solution appears less expensive, and more focused on the French market, with most of the production of electric coaches currently in China.
« Lack of energy forces us to increase the dosage, advances Gilles Lefebvre. That being said, we don’t stop ourselves from doing anything.CNG (natural gas for cars), hybrid, new electric coaches with a very heavy range of on-board batteries allowing 400 km of autonomy, and maybe soon hydrogenhave their own interests based on the uses of the vehicle”.
Market opening
After a war of coaches converted to electricity, we found one of the pioneers of retrofit in France: the company Savoyard Retrofleet, established near Chambéry. This company, which has thirty employees, was bought last June by the company Sarthoise CBM, based in Rouillon. It manufactures its own batteries and also works on a fleet of vans, coaches and company vehicles.
In April 2023, the redesigned Iveco Crossway Coach Prototype, developed in 2020 thanks to financial support from ADEME, passed the approval tests of the Technical Association of Automobiles, Motorcycles and Vehicles (UTAC). Since then, Retrofleet has expanded its production capabilities.
« We are currently able to restore a car a week. In a few weeks, it will be one per day,” proudly announces Emmanuel Flahaut, general manager of the company. According to the manager, a large market for the conversion of the fleet of 60,000 French coaches is open for the next decades to French manufacturers. ” We are the first European country to authorize mass production of electrical repairs,” he rejoiced.
Bring other areas awake
For its part, the Centre-Val de Loire region invested 1.7 million euros for this first order. A sum which should be amortized in ten years thanks to significant fuel savings and the extension of the life of the coaches.
“We will gain at least five years, and maybe more,” examines Philippe Fournié, vice-president of the region in charge of transportation. The next contract will expire in 2025, while the local authority should quickly adopt a multi-investment plan to promote it.
The regional vice president hopes that other regions will follow the same path,” which will allow us to place bulk orders with manufacturers and lower prices. “ According to Gilles Lefebvre, this should not be long in many urban areas, from Nouvelle-Aquitaine to Grand Est through Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
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