Electric bus failure due to pneumatic component

Failure of a pneumatic component was what went wrong with an electric bus on trial in Dunedin, since fixed and pressed back into service.

The hitch on Wednesday last week — the day after the trial started — was unrelated to the electric function of the bus and it returned to service the following afternoon.

Global Bus Ventures development engineer Andrew Cho said the bus had demonstrated its capability to handle Dunedin hills "with silent ease" since the month-long trial began.

Any faults encountered would help improve vehicle reliability in an array of environments, he said.

"Complications are a possibility when testing in new environments, which is why our EV personnel were deployed with the test vehicle, to provide support for the trial."

The Rolleston company analysed data remotely and worked out the problem at a monitoring station.