This thing is a gyrobus. It's a bus you plug on the grid at the stop, there's an engine powering a gyroscoping wheel and you get 10km off that without battery

Why do we have normal buses this is way better.

Sure, I am sure it works in extreme cold.

The problem with most energy storage solutions. Extreme temperatures mess it up.

Electric trolleys better IMO.

this is a bus in my city

How long is it sitting at a stop? Is the driver supposed to get out and plug and unplug the thing at every stop?

@Demolishun why? I‘d think that this particular one would be immune to extreme temperatures.

We just have buses with batteries in them instead

@jestdotty montreal used to have tramways everywhere but they replaced it by these idiotic buses

This is surely much cooler.

However, maintenance, parts' wear, vibrations -- these are only some of the reasons they were left in the past. I don't remember about efficiency though

I think there even were some accidents where due to the mechanical fault passengers were injured by the spinning mass (IDK if I read that or someone told me).

I remember I heard somewhere that storing energy in spinning wheels is one of the most efficient methods. But that was for stationary gyros. I‘m not sure about moving ones.

Pretty cool, but where does the flywheel go inside that thing? and what's its axis? Buses need kind of a lot of power and they tend to be moving very fast whenever the road is clear, the gyroscopic procession of a fully charged flywheel has got to be noticeable at least by the driver.

@lorentz I imagine that the bus can only go in a straight line since any turning would be countered by the gyro :)
Unless the axis points up, maybe.

@Lensflare Actually, it may even be beneficial that way, it should keep the bus from falling over on very steep turns if it's ever taken off road (for not more than 10km)

I can't think of a use case for a gyroscopically stabilized bus that wouldn't entirely exceed the operational range of a bus in the first place (for example, due to a lack of 3 point seatbelts), but I'm sure they exist. As for the flywheel, I'm not sure what a charger would look like but as far as physical limitations go it should be possible to charge it way faster than any battery, which is I think the limiting factor for charging battery-powered buses at stops.

@lorentz I remember going to see a electric car conversion company in the 90s. They were experimenting with super fast charging of lead acid batteries. Like 600 volts or something crazy. They said the limiting factor was the plastic case. It kept melting. Not sure on longevity of the battery either. They had the battery behind ballistic plastic to they could watch.

@Demolishun I read about a concept for electric car infrastructure where the batteries themselves were rapidly replaceable. I sometimes wonder if a durable economic model could be designed for their distribution. Sadly batteries are expensive and degrade over time so if you want to replace one at a charging station they'd have to determine its quality before determining the differential price of the new fully charged battery.