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7900-series Nova LFS - Updates


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4 hours ago, sw4400 said:

You got to do these reports with a little flair, @garmon757..... :PxD Let me show you....

Pretty lame. Has to do it the cable news way with ALERT ALERT ALERT or BREAKING NEWS BREAKING NEWS BREAKING NEWS and at least a crawl and a banner, such as

_________________________________________________________

BREAKING NEWS BREAKING NEWS BREAKING NEWS

8306 is  at the shop.

REPORT: TRUMP IS A [fill in the blank with anything.]

WOLF BLITZER INTERVIEWS BUS HAWK GARMON IN 1:42:11

___________________________________________________________

 

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1 hour ago, Busjack said:

Pretty lame. Has to do it the cable news way with ALERT ALERT ALERT or BREAKING NEWS BREAKING NEWS BREAKING NEWS and at least a crawl and a banner, such as

_________________________________________________________

BREAKING NEWS BREAKING NEWS BREAKING NEWS

8306 is  at the shop.

REPORT: TRUMP IS A [fill in the blank with anything.]

WOLF BLITZER INTERVIEWS BUS HAWK GARMON IN 1:42:11

___________________________________________________________

 

I promised @garmon757 I wouldn't bring politics onto the forum again, so I'll leave you to ponder what my response to the blue-colored italicized text is(hint: it's not for the kids to see)..... :PxD 

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5 minutes ago, sw4400 said:

I promised @garmon757 I wouldn't bring politics onto the forum again, so I'll leave you to ponder what my response to the blue-colored italicized text is(hint: it's not for the kids to see)..... :PxD 

I was only aping CNN and its competitors. That banner is always on CNN, but what goes into the blank seems to depend on how CNN believes it can profit on that subject, i.e. fer him one day, agen him lately.

Certainly was not an endorsement of him on my part.

Similarly, the countdown clock is generally on CNN, regardless of the importance of the so called event.

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23 hours ago, sw4400 said:

You got to do these reports with a little flair, @garmon757..... :PxD Let me show you....

#8306 is at the shop.

 

 

18 hours ago, Busjack said:

Pretty lame. Has to do it the cable news way with ALERT ALERT ALERT or BREAKING NEWS BREAKING NEWS BREAKING NEWS and at least a crawl and a banner, such as

_________________________________________________________

BREAKING NEWS BREAKING NEWS BREAKING NEWS

8306 is  at the shop.

REPORT: TRUMP IS A [fill in the blank with anything.]

WOLF BLITZER INTERVIEWS BUS HAWK GARMON IN 1:42:11

___________________________________________________________

 

I can't stand y'all two!!! xD

Trump is a dead 6400 Nova that wants to build a wall at Forest Glen!!! xD:P

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32 minutes ago, Mr.cta85 said:

I saw 8297 yesterday at belmont and ashland heading westbound and I know 8299 is here already wow!!. Overall this was a fast delivery with just 25 more novas to go ???. I wonder what company will cta go with to replace the NF when its time for it.

Well, it depends on what powertrain they choose to go with..... New Flyer is proving themselves with the two XE40's we have for testing. Nova has an LFE, but CTA would more likely want to procure a small quantity to test them(maybe that small order of 27 that was talked about awhile back). But we won't know until the contract is bid upon who gets it. If they go with Hybrids, New Flyer and Nova can hang with the best of them. New Flyer with the XDE40 and Nova with the LFS HEV. Unless another well-endowed bus manufacturer comes along(read, well endowed..... that means NO to NABI)

So when the time comes, look for one of these two heavy hitters to win the contract to replace the New Flyer D40LF's.

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1 hour ago, Express Flyer said:

What about Daimler? We've never seen any of theirs here. Why is that?

CTA is funded by the State of Illinois and taxpayers. That being said....

NovaBus is a division of Volvo

New Flyer is a division of MCI

These buses start at about $500,000/bus for the 40' Diesel. Hybrids and Electrics are more, naturally.

Daimler is a division of Mercedes-Benz

These buses(just the 40' Diesel) would probably start at $750,000/bus on up(I might be discounting... they may be nearer to $1,000,000/bus). Mercedes-Benz is a luxury vehicle, and these buses would be no different, being in that family.

I think that effectively says "No." to CTA procuring Daimler buses.

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4 hours ago, Express Flyer said:

What about Daimler? We've never seen any of theirs here. Why is that?

 

2 hours ago, sw4400 said:

...

Daimler is a division of Mercedes-Benz

....

There's a ,much simpler answer to this. having nothing to do with what sw said (and MB is a division of Daimler, not the other way around, and MCI is a division of NF, which is mostly owned by Marcopolo).

Same deal: Daimler does not sell MB heavy trucks here, but owns Freightliner.

Similar deal: Volvo does not sell Volvo buses here, but owns Prevost Car and Nova Bus. At one time it did sell actual Volvos to Connedcticut Transit and NJT. Then, until 2002, it sold Nova Buses, then left the US transit Market in 2002, and then came back about 2010.

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6 hours ago, sw4400 said:

Well, it depends on what powertrain they choose to go with..... New Flyer is proving themselves with the two XE40's we have for testing. Nova has an LFE, but CTA would more likely want to procure a small quantity to test them(maybe that small order of 27 that was talked about awhile back). But we won't know until the contract is bid upon who gets it. If they go with Hybrids, New Flyer and Nova can hang with the best of them. New Flyer with the XDE40 and Nova with the LFS HEV. Unless another well-endowed bus manufacturer comes along(read, well endowed..... that means NO to NABI)

So when the time comes, look for one of these two heavy hitters to win the contract to replace the New Flyer D40LF's.

Sorry sw but the powertrain isn't the main factor though there may be a small bit of that in play. It's still going to be like it's always been for the most part. It depends on who can meet CTA's specs for the lowest bid. price. Electric buses are pretty pricey still so it's doubtful if they get many more beyond the 27 that's been announced. More than likely they're going to get more diesels under whatever EPA compliance rules are in place for the engine at the time CTA gets ready to start replacing the 1000s, which from past history might three years to complete after getting past the bid and prototype stages.

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4 hours ago, jajuan said:

Sorry sw but the powertrain isn't the main factor though there may be a small bit of that in play.

Also, all the major manufacturers (which seem limited to NF and Nova) offer all powertrains (diesel, hybrid, electric, CNG). Electric may provide more choice with BYD and Proterra.

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7 hours ago, jajuan said:

Sorry sw but the powertrain isn't the main factor though there may be a small bit of that in play. It's still going to be like it's always been for the most part. It depends on who can meet CTA's specs for the lowest bid. price. Electric buses are pretty pricey still so it's doubtful if they get many more beyond the 27 that's been announced. More than likely they're going to get more diesels under whatever EPA compliance rules are in place for the engine at the time CTA gets ready to start replacing the 1000s, which from past history might three years to complete after getting past the bid and prototype stages.

 

3 hours ago, Busjack said:

Also, all the major manufacturers (which seem limited to NF and Nova) offer all powertrains (diesel, hybrid, electric, CNG). Electric may provide more choice with BYD and Proterra.

I think I should clarify my post reply.... I think there might have been a slight misunderstanding....

15 hours ago, sw4400 said:

Well, it depends on what powertrain they choose to go with..... New Flyer is proving themselves with the two XE40's we have for testing. Nova has an LFE, but CTA would more likely want to procure a small quantity to test them(maybe that small order of 27 that was talked about awhile back). But we won't know until the contract is bid upon who gets it. If they go with Hybrids, New Flyer and Nova can hang with the best of them. New Flyer with the XDE40 and Nova with the LFS HEV. Unless another well-endowed bus manufacturer comes along(read, well endowed..... that means NO to NABI)

So when the time comes, look for one of these two heavy hitters to win the contract to replace the New Flyer D40LF's.

In the highlighted orange text, I mentioned powertrain as I know the CTA has three different types of powertrains in their current fleet.... Clean Diesel, Hybrid and All-Electric. I do agree, @jajuan that All-Electric buses are really expensive and also still in infancy, and a order more than say, 100 could be disasterous if they start suffering failures after just a few years on the road. In the highlighted blue text, I was mentioning how the CTA has the two All-Electric buses they received and have been testing since 2014. Nova started producing an LFE just this year and is being used in select TA's to test it's reliability in a typical daily service environment. If Nova is a bidder for the 27 Electric Bus order that may be procured in the next FY and is selected as the lowest bidder(if that's the case in some of these bids). I don't have access to the bids for the 450* Clean Diesel buses procured that went to Nova, but CTA did kind of state in the bids that it didn't have to be New Flyer..... perhaps New Flyer was the lowest bidder, but Nova was a bit more expensive and CTA wanted to see how the new LFS Smart Bus would function in Chicago, having 484 LFS buses from 2000-2002 in their current fleet, and also CTA wanted to shake things up a bit, with 1,358 New Flyers in their rosters at the time of procurement(1,050 40' buses at the time, 308 60' buses).

Again, I don't know who was the lowest bidder, but I believe there were two or three bidders in the contract before it was announced who won it. One was obviously Nova, but could the other have been New Flyer???

*=Base + Option(s) currently total 425 with a remaining option of 25 more on the table if CTA wishes to procure them.

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12 hours ago, sw4400 said:

perhaps New Flyer was the lowest bidder, but Nova was a bit more expensive and CTA wanted to see how the new LFS Smart Bus would function in Chicago,

That one can be debunked real quickly. CTA is now dealing with a protest from Bombardier. The same thing would have happened if Nova was more expensive than NF, but NF met all specifications.

What could relevant is the round in the pre-bid process where proposers can ask for proposed deviations. For instance the addendum to this procurement had NF asking whether the acceleration spec could be waived because an XD60 with a ZF transmission could not meet it. CTA said denied. Someone on some bus wiki then inferred that the buses would have Allison transmissions.Similarly, Nova asked if the tubing could have different colors and was denied. I assume why a CTA bus is $500K. while a Pace bus is about $420K is that CTA got its specs but had to pay to do so.

The other thing is that CTA is real clear about when it runs an experiment, like the 65 low floors in 1995, the 10 series and 10 parallel hybrids in 2006, and the 2 and potentially 27 electrics.A 450 order to replace buses is not an experiment.

The FTA has guidelines on how equipment can be procured with federal funds, which require bidding, assigned options on a contract that was competitively bid, or a bid multi-agency contract. Deviate from that and you get a protest and your federal funds yanked.

Finally, since the contract has been awarded, you can FOIA all the bids, although I am sure you don't have the technical expertise to evaluate them. Maybe you can hire AECOM, or the former CTA employees running a consultant firm that represented BYD at the prebid meeting.on the bus procurement.

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