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