The City of Carpinteria, CA, celebrated the one-year anniversary of its all-electric Seaside Shuttle bus service, manufactured by Ebus Inc. (Downey CA) and powered by Saft's (Paris, France) 288V, 280Ah, rechargeable nickel-cadmium (NiCd) battery packs. During the first year of operation, with the exception of scheduled maintenance, the all-electric shuttle buses provided uninterrupted service and logged over 24,000 miles in revenue service without battery swapping. The shuttle service operates 29 days per month and logs approximately 80 revenue miles per day.
"We believe that 24,000 all-electric miles is the longest, all-electric range, that any US transit authority has been able to attain from a single vehicle in one year, without the use of battery swapping," said Gary Gleason, general manager of the Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District and operator of the Carpinteria fleet.
"The NiCd batteries have provided us with better range, better life, better reliability and better cost performance than other battery chemistries we have used in the past" said William Webster, Jr., president of Ebus. "We have been very pleased with the results and have incorporated these batteries into all of our new vehicles."
