The INSANE New Electric Buses of Amsterdam

The new electric buses in Amsterdam are absolutely crazy. They are truly proper and modern buses for the year 2023, and they will only get better as Amsterdam is looking to fully electrify our public bus fleet by the end of this year. Or, 2024. What makes them so special, though?

Watch this video to find out!

TikTok: @ayoungengineerguy

Insta: @ayoungengineerguy

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Chapters

0:00 Amsterdam's New Buses
2:18 So Quiet
4:00 THE CAMERAS!!
5:41 Inside the Bus
9:25 Camera Mirror Displays
10:35 Bus on a Diet
12:30 Other E-Buses Exist Too
13:13 Charging
15:42 Humming Speakers for the Disabled
16:47 More Cool Bus Features
18:43 Checking In and Out
19:56 Outro

[argh]

You know what's better than an electric bus? A trolly bus. Or make it a trolly bus with a "small" battery, do in-motion-charging, and only put up half the wires in a central location that covers multiple lines. 10 years later you replace a teslas worth of battery, not 10 teslas worth, which is basically buying a whole new bus.

[Felix-nzlq]

We've almost transitied to a 100% electric bus park in Oslo now, and the difference is really night and day. I used to hate traveling on buses as I just generally found them unpleasant and loud, but the new electric ones genuinely are a lot nicer to use. I actually prefer them sometimes to the Metro in summer as the prior does not have any air condition which makes it just a tad uncomfortable when the degrees tip 27C or so

[taronjaruchaiyakul]

Informational, passionate, and showing us a part of the world the US wishes they had. What an amazing video man. Best one yet! Keep it up!

[lpdude]

We have had electric buses for a long time in Oslo - Norway. Now in July, all the buses are electric after delivery of 180 in April and 150 buses in June / July. All boats to the islands and the commuter boats are also fully electric. 89% of all private cars sold in 2022 and 2023 are also electric - so this will be good.

[thebackyard]

We've had them for several years now and i must say, these buses are great! I remember taking a random trip to aalsmeer when these buses got introduced, the ride was incredibly smooth, and they even have USB ports for charging your devices!! Overall i think the manufacturer of these buses, VDL, are doing an incredible job in the european market, and i was delighted to see them in service in Osnabrück Germany on a train-layover. Great to learn i'm not the only one appreciating these simple vehicles, like they should be!

[las]

RET in the Rotterdam area has had electric buses running in my town for a few years now. When I now go to another city and a traditional diesel bus passes me by it really strikes me just how LOUD they are. The difference is incredible.

[vuurkip]

I actually had an internship at where these busses are maintained and it was very fun. Got to know alot about them and see what the best seat is. My one complaint with these busses is that I much prefer the layouts in the ebusco electric ones especially the nice raised back and front seat with windscreen view

[Vitally_Trivial]

We have similar digital mirrors on some of our buses here in Brisbane. They are a significant improvement over mirrors for several reasons; no need to manually adjust their position for each driver, fewer blind spots, and great clarity in wet weather. All too often the mirrors will get covered in raindrops, and cars can become invisible! Imagine a silver hatchback without their headlights on, exactly the same colour as the road and spray, further camouflaged by the drops on the mirror. With the cameras, we can see them clear as day. I remember being really impressed when we were being shown them for the first time in the depot, on a drilling day, being able to see the ripples of raindrops in puddles beside the bus on the screen. Significant improvement, and I hope to see them become more widespread on buses, trucks, and private cars as well.

[davidellis]

Hi I'm from the UK and had a few points to make about your great video:

1. I own a car with camera mirrors (Honda e) and while I think that they about a wash with traditional mirrors, the ones you show are fantastic. As tech gets cheaper I wouldn't be surprised if any basic car has them in about 15 years.

2. In London at least, for at least a decade I've been able to use my debit card, iPhone or watch to tap in and out of public transport. Even my mum in her 70s with no internet uses her contactless card when visiting me. If I visit the US and it's as bad as you say, you're going to get a random English guy saying some very naughty words and waving his arms around.

3. I genuinely appreciate you saying when you're not knowledgeable enough about something to be sure. I'm a surgeon not an engineer, but one of the best lessons a boss has taught me is "The second best answer is always 'I don't know"'

Keep it up, I've subscribed and if you're really lucky you won't get another extremely verbose comment from me!

[deyanmohamed]

Love the enthusiasm, I live (study & work) in the Netherlands for like 4 years and that's the first time I feel so enthusiastic about being here :D thanks to your passion and the way you say AmsterDAM :D love it man, amazing, keep up the good work! Subscribed!

[JulesStoop]

Enjoyable and interesting! And a honorable mention for your repeated pronunciation of *AMSTERDAM* like it’s supposed to be written in all capitals 😂

[Trevor_Austin]

I worked at Schiphol airport and have ridden on these busses. They are excellent city busses. They are fast, comfortable and very quiet. But they are not cheap. Remember, they also require a considerable weight of rare earths, expensive minerals and metals. They also need electricity to run. That means a reliable, guaranteed supply of electricity. So not solar or wind and I don’t think Holland does hydro. Dutch greenies have stopped nuclear so these busses are powered by gas and nuclear imported from France.

[ghostofdre]

The humming noises were implemented on early model Toyota Prius Hybrid vehicles in Japan, they used a similar system with a speaker. This was in response to an increase in low speed collisions with pedestrians as the vehicles were virtually silent in electric mode.

[SteeleJackOutdoors]

With regards to closing the back doors early - I’d suggest it’s maybe also because the rear doors usually trigger a ‘hold-brake’ which takes a few seconds to clear once the doors are closed. So it’s quicker going to close the rear doors as soon as possible so the hold break is ready to release as soon as you’ve finished boarding.

[vogel]

There is a HUGE drawback to the camera's instead of mirrors that you failed to see....especially in Amsterdam! Mirrors offer two-way vision. Not only can the driver see the cyclist, the cyclist can also see the driver thus the cyclist can confirm the driver spotted him...or not. A camera offers only one-way vision...no eye-contact, no confirmation for the cyclist that the busdriver spots you, no moving out of the situation when you are in a blind spot.

[ehmzed]

In Florence, Italy, our busses got their contactless ticket machines upgraded to accept credit/debit cards years ago.
And then the new regional bus company took over and sent us three decades back in time, now there is no contactless payment at all, just the old paper tickets, app or SMS. They don't even use the public WiFi and the LCD screen the new busses had added years before the takeover!
Instead of raising the whole region's busses to Florence's level, they lowered Florence's busses to the rest of the region's level.
It's actually infuriating, considering the takeover was also so chaotic because they suddenly stopped following the old timetables and supporting the live bus time info app.
Oh well, at least they kept the hybrid busses and their new ones are all hybrid. And I saw in another city they put new e-ink timetable screens rather than paper or LED ones, which will be nice for readability.

[mfbfreak]

The diesel bus in the first part of the video is gonna be replaced later this year. My transit concession will go all electric in the fall of this year.
I live along the bus route of the one you got on camera, and i'm not gonna miss the vacuum cleaner like noise of the Voith transmission. The diesel motors themselves aren't bothersome to me but the transmission is loud as hell when pulling away.
With regards to the camera 'mirrors', i'm sure they're much better for the driver. However, for a cyclist or pedestrian they're annoying. You cannot tell if the driver can see you anymore. Can't tell if they're looking. Can't see if i'm in their field of view.
This means that i have to fully rely on the driver to keep me in sight, rather than making sure myself that i'm in view of the mirrors and making eye contact with the driver.
The driver can see more, but it's now impossible to tell if they're looking.

[gckyrfy]

Hiya!
I noted a few things about your video.

1. The usage of NFC Contactless payments on public transit isn’t something new. TFL have had it for many years now and even the MTA in New York offer it.

2. A purely battery powered bus is better than a diesel hybrid but environmentally not as sustainable as a trolly bus or tram. The battery will reach end of life long before the bus does and every charge means a loss of energy. This coupled with the environmental cost of producing the batteries might even make a battery bus worse than say an HVO fuel bus.

3. The humming sound from the speakers is an EU mandate for all EVs.

4. I agree that the North American buses are generally older than European but it’s not like modern busses don’t exist there. Especially the BTR buses that are starting to get quite common in North and South America.

[justusgovaert]

This video is really nice and Electric busses like these are quite cool and electric busses are quite comfortable . This bus is made by VDL. A company originally Dutch which feels great to know that it's from my country. But there is one huge problem with electronic engines and that is the battery. The battery is so bad for the environment to produce that the advantage i less pollution is not relevant anymore. The best thing to do is what they have in the city of Arnhem more in the east part of the Netherlands. The trolleybus. It's an electric bus without a battery. Instead they use power from the cables above their route the same as the tram does so they don't have the battery that is made in an extremely climate unfriendly way. You would think it would be an issue because they can't freely choose their route especially when there is an interruption on or if the route changes. But that really is not much of an issue since the route rarely changes and maintenance to the road is also not happening to often For moments that their is a maintenance going on the busses can be fitted with a small battery to just follow a small part of the rouse without power from the line. that would be suitable for small changes in the route both temporary and permanent changes. The much smaller battery than what electric busses have now would be enough to really make a difference to the climate change

[N.S.M-oygm]

Great Video! This makes me feel great pleasure seeing how Amsterdam is developing into a transport orientated city.