The future of mobility is coming to Parsdorf: BMW’s battery research facility in the new commercial area could start operating there by the end of the year, and a Tesla shop is due to open in the old commercial area at around the same time. Soon all buses that stop in Parsdorf could also be operated electrically – but whether they should do so remains to be seen.
Basically, it’s a good idea if a municipality sets a good example and uses vehicles that are as environmentally friendly as possible on its bus routes. For the battery buses that have now been decided, this only applies under certain conditions, such as when using electric cars. It’s nice that these are less noisy, and that they don’t smell of petrol either. Only that this really helps the environment is not always the case. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a bus or a car: If the electricity for the battery comes from fossil sources – which is currently the case for a large part of the electricity consumed in this country – the e-car only causes a shift in CO2 emissions. Instead of coming from the exhaust, the carbon dioxide comes from the power plant chimney, the effect on the climate is no different. The new e-bus would therefore have to be refueled with green electricity to have a positive effect. This is actually a matter of course – only that it is not even mentioned once in the 82 pages of the meeting proposal for the electrification of the bus lines.
On the other hand, it is very clearly pointed out that the switch to e-buses involves a considerable financial risk: Because without subsidies, this will cost the municipality around 200,000 euros per year and whether these funds are available and to what extent, that’s something they want to know for themselves Experts do not specify in their study. Ideally, the annual additional costs could drop to around 35,000 euros – but that’s not certain. The next step is to find out exactly how much the co-payment for the e-buses is, and the municipality wants to commission a concept for this. The result must be evaluated very carefully.
Because every euro that flows into the electrification of the buses as additional costs is ultimately missing for a possible improvement of the offer. And that would be highly counterproductive in terms of climate protection, because reducing CO2 emissions from local public transport is less a question of the drives than of capacity utilization: the more buses there are and the more car trips that become superfluous, the better. Two buses with a diesel engine could therefore be even more climate-friendly than just one with an electric drive – even if it sounds like mobility of the future.