Ex-Auckland diesels become interim trolley replacements

A posse of ex-Auckland diesel buses will be a temporary replacement for the Wellington trolleybus fleet until new hybrid buses arrive or those refitted with Wrightspeed powertrains come online.

Stuff is reporting that when the Wellington trolleybus fleet retires at the end of October, for an interim period of eight months, diesel buses from Auckland will replace them until new hybrids arrive in July 2018.

According to Stuff, NZ Bus says the replacement vehicles from Auckland are no more than ten years old.

This month NZ Bus chief executive Zane Fulljames told Auto Media Group that WrightSpeed has been working through some technical issues in respect of the retrofitting of its electric powertrain in the NZ Bus fleet of trolley buses.

“The good news is that they are now making good progress and Wrightspeed are now in the final stages of their acceptance testing of the first prototype before officially handing over to NZ Bus,” says Fulljames.

“Once delivered we will complete our final acceptance testing over a 30-day period,” he says.

“Getting to this stage has taken a lot longer than we originally anticipated, but it is not uncommon for innovation that is breaking new ground, such as this, hitting speed bumps and we want to ensure that we get this right,” says Fulljames.

Now following that admission, Fulljames is now telling Stuff

that NZ Bus is scheduling final acceptance of the motor testing for November, and then the company will decide after that if it will order the powertrains from Wrightspeed.