Speaker 1: Sixteen past four. I've brought you the story this afternoon
Speaker 1: about the transition for our electric bus fleet from traditional
Speaker 1: diesel buses gas buses to electric and it's not going well.
Speaker 1: Confirmed with me from Transport for New South Wales after
Speaker 1: a tip off from one of our listeners who's a
Speaker 1: bus driver, that all seventy two buses that have been
Speaker 1: ordered from Custom Denning. Custom Denning is a Sydney based manufacturer.
Speaker 1: So great that we have Australian manufacturing, but all seventy
Speaker 1: two buses need new batteries. Howard Collins is the Transport
Speaker 1: for New South Wales Director General. Thanks for joining me, Howard,
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Kinton, this sounds like a complete
Speaker 1: stuff up.
Speaker 2: Well, I think we've got to look at the industry
Speaker 2: and say, look, Custom Denning doing a great job to
Speaker 2: our only real Australian manufacturer from ground upwards put their
Speaker 2: industry and chose a battery made in Europe. Unfortunately, this
Speaker 2: battery has proved very unreliable, so we have I've agreed
Speaker 2: with them, we removed all seventy two. The good news
Speaker 2: though is they have finally dealt with and agreed with
Speaker 2: the manufacturer of this battery. To have a new type
Speaker 2: that's been sorted in the factory. Now they're probably a
Speaker 2: dozen vehicles being retrofitted. It takes a while for that
Speaker 2: to be done. There are vehicles already out and yes,
Speaker 2: they're probably fifteen vehicles still waiting to be changed out.
Speaker 2: This can't be done overnight. It's not just a plug
Speaker 2: in new battery goes in a bit like you know
Speaker 2: your video recorder or something like that. It is really
Speaker 2: something which has got to be But are good on
Speaker 2: custom denning. You know, they're one of few Australian true
Speaker 2: Australian manufacturers. We are buying other vehicles from other states.
Speaker 2: We are We're not rushing this. We are behind the
Speaker 2: rest of the world. And to be honest, you know,
Speaker 2: every day I walk out the front door of Elizabeth Street,
Speaker 2: I hear the smooth quietness of dozens of electric buses.
Speaker 1: So so those electric buses, how that you hear that
Speaker 1: are running? Where are they from? Are they the ones
Speaker 1: from China? Are they from Europe?
Speaker 2: They're all sorts of different manufacturers. It is true that
Speaker 2: to get ourselves moving, this is a long journey, over
Speaker 2: a ten year program to replace four thousand vehicles. The
Speaker 2: first seventeen hundred are on their way, probably about three
Speaker 2: to five hundred a year. Some of them have direct
Speaker 2: manufacturing from abroad, but we are working with those manufacturers
Speaker 2: to gradually remove the content which comes from other countries
Speaker 2: and set up factories to start to assemble and then
Speaker 2: manufacture custom denning. It's a bit like David versus Goliath.
Speaker 2: They have worked very hard to get an all Australian
Speaker 2: product apart from German gearboxes and what was a French battery.
Speaker 2: But that comes with what we call infant mortalities, some challenges.
Speaker 2: You know, when other countries are building seventy seven thousand
Speaker 2: a year, they've had plenty of chance to get the
Speaker 2: reliability up. It's a bit like a toyo, you know.
Speaker 2: They're the most reliable vehicle, I think, in the world
Speaker 2: because they've made millions of them.
Speaker 1: So the batteries were from France. That these are the
Speaker 1: batteries that were installed in the seventy two buses, so
Speaker 1: they're now being replaced. My information from your stuff yesterday
Speaker 1: was that only two replacement buses are on the road.
Speaker 2: They're literally on the road with the companies. But what
Speaker 2: we're doing is there are dozens in the battery at
Speaker 2: Custom Denningside Mary's alongside the Element To vehicles, which are
Speaker 2: the new version of this vehicle, which is a significant
Speaker 2: sort of improvement and certainly a lot of lessons learned.
Speaker 2: The issue we have here is the battery company and
Speaker 2: Custom Denning needed to have a great conversation about who's
Speaker 2: responsible where's the warranty. That conversation took place. It meant
Speaker 2: that for a while the vehicles had to set in
Speaker 2: storage because we didn't want unreliable vehicles breaking down. But
Speaker 2: there again they needed to sort out with their supplier
Speaker 2: who was accountable. That's now happened. New versions of the
Speaker 2: batteries are coming in, they're being supplied, they're in the
Speaker 2: factory and workers are changing those outs.
Speaker 1: So when will the whole seventy two fleet be on
Speaker 1: the road?
Speaker 2: I reckon in the next few months we will see
Speaker 2: them all back in service. We are also introducing lots
Speaker 2: of other vehicles, the Element Too's vehicles from other manufacturers,
Speaker 2: so we'll start to see more and more vehicles in
Speaker 2: Sydney starting to become electric.
Speaker 1: I've had drivers of these particular buses get in contact
Speaker 1: would be saying they were seriously concerned for the safety
Speaker 1: of the bus and the past because they would stop
Speaker 1: at a set of traffic lights and the bus wouldn't
Speaker 1: start up again.
Speaker 2: I think there was that, and I think that's why
Speaker 2: we took the decision several months ago to say, look,
Speaker 2: we cannot accept this reliability issue and safety risk. So
Speaker 2: they were withdrawn and service. That hasn't put pressure on
Speaker 2: the bus companies because obviously they lost a lot of vehicles.
Speaker 2: But now the story is, and it's a clear story.
Speaker 2: They are less in storage, more in production. They've got
Speaker 2: a new battery fitted. We're going through a rigorous testing
Speaker 2: process before it gets to the bus operator, and we've
Speaker 2: got good support from Custom Denny. It will take time.
Speaker 2: But like all brand new things which start from nothing,
Speaker 2: you and sometimes you buy a component it doesn't work,
Speaker 2: you have to say, let's have a different.
Speaker 1: One, because you know on the surface, I've got to
Speaker 1: say how and it just looks like to me and I've
Speaker 1: been to that factory in some areas and it was
Speaker 1: an announcement made by the previous coalition government, but it
Speaker 1: seems to me that there's so much rush to get
Speaker 1: electric vehicles on the roads. We're doing it before we're ready,
Speaker 1: and this was again confirmed by transporting yourself. I was
Speaker 1: a few months ago we confirmed that diesel generators were
Speaker 1: being used to power it up the buses, which sort
Speaker 1: of defects the purpose of the whole thing. Not all
Speaker 1: the buses, mind.
Speaker 2: You understand that. But look, the most important thing is
Speaker 2: we want to and this gun wants to support local manufacturing.
Speaker 2: But you're starting from a fledgling organization is working very
Speaker 2: hard to catch up. You know, we could have done,
Speaker 2: like many people do, you know, buy a load of
Speaker 2: off the shelfing, you know, entirely from another country which
Speaker 2: they make hundreds of thousands of vehicles. That's not the policy.
Speaker 2: We want to work through that. Yes, we've got to
Speaker 2: buy some imported vehicles, but over time we do see
Speaker 2: the opportunity for local manufacturing like it used to be
Speaker 2: where a lot of company's got involved in building great
Speaker 2: buses made in Australia, if not New South Wales. And
Speaker 2: that's what we're going to see over the next three
Speaker 2: to four years, seventeen hundred vehicles will be here. The
Speaker 2: other thing, and it's not only as you say, buying
Speaker 2: the electric buses. We're opening our first major conversion of
Speaker 2: a bus electrification charging in Brookvale very soon, in the
Speaker 2: next couple of months, we're starting to see other bus
Speaker 2: depots being converted. It's a long game though. You can't
Speaker 2: do this overnight. This is like going from steam trains
Speaker 2: to diesel. It takes time.
Speaker 1: We've got to get it right though. Thank you, Howard,
Speaker 1: thank you very much, indeed Howard Collins who is the
Speaker 1: Transport for New South Wales Coordinator General. So there are
Speaker 1: the facts. All seventy two buses need new batteries, so
Speaker 1: they're in the factory at some areas at the moment.
Speaker 1: They're also being stored in storage facilities. There are depots
Speaker 1: not being used to the moment because they need new batteries.
Speaker 1: They ain't on the roads.