Cape Town’s Golden Arrow Bus Services (GABS) has deployed 120 electric buses since January this year, traveling a combined 115 000 km to 120 000 km a week.

“At this rate we should get close to six-million kilometres with our electric buses during the calendar year 2026,” says GABS company engineer Gideon Neethling.

He adds that the solar-boosted charging system installed at the public transport operator’s Arrowgate depot, in Cape Town, is working as designed, and “meeting our requirements comfortably”.

“With Cape Town’s rainy winters we unfortunately have less solar electricity available, and we have to use more electricity from the City of Cape Town,” he notes.

“We are, however, busy with a feasibility study to increase the solar capacity at our depot.

“We are also in discussions with an independent power producer to complete a feasibility study to buy renewable electricity from them via a wheeling agreement.”

Cost Savers?
With 120 electric buses in a fleet of more than 1 200 buses, it is feasible to imagine that GABS must be saving a considerable amount of money when considering the sharp spike in fuel prices in recent months owing to the conflict in the Middle East.

“We are cautious to use short-term diesel costs to calculate savings,” says Neethling.

“But, we support the view that this spike in oil and diesel prices highlights the fact that electrifying your fleet should be part of your risk management strategy.

“It should also add focus to the fact that we should localise energy production in South Africa as we move towards electric vehicles, and reduce the money leaving the country to purchase oil or diesel.”

Neethling adds that GABS unfortunately does not have sufficient electric buses in its fleet to stave off ticket price increases owing to the Iran crisis.

“Our electric buses represent 10% of the kilometres that we travel, which will unfortunately not be able to stop a price increase, but it will help to soften the blow a bit.”

Neethling adds that GABS has not yet taken an official decision on whether it will add more electric units to its bus fleet this year.

“The Iran crisis will, however, definitely play a big role in our decision process, and will probably support future decisions to buy additional electric buses.”

GABS’s first electric buses are from Chinese giant BYD, with the company currently in the early days of testing buses from a second supplier.

The BYD people carriers are B12 buses, with similar specifications to the bulk of the current Golden Arrow fleet.

The 12.5-m-long, 65-seater electric buses are equipped with lithium-iron-phosphate batteries and have a range of just more than 200 km.