Howard Collins confirms EV bus disaster
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16 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 72 buses that have been ordered from Custom Denning

Custom Denning is a Sydney-based manufacturer, so great that we have Australian manufacturing. But all 72 buses need new batteries. Howard Collins is the Transport for New South Wales Director-General. Thanks for joining me, Howard. Thank you very much, Clinton. 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. 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 agree with them, we removed all 72. 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, there are probably a dozen vehicles being retrofitted. It takes a while for that to be done. There are vehicles already out and yes, there are probably 15 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 your video recorder or something like that. It is really something which has got to be. But good on custom denning. They're one of few Australian, true Australian manufacturers. We are buying other vehicles from other states. We're not rushing this. We're behind the rest of the...

the world and to be honest, every day I walk out the front door of Elizabeth Street, I hear the smooth quietness of dozens of electric buses. So those electric buses 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 10-year program to replace 4,000 vehicles.

The first 1,700 are on their way, probably about 300 to 500 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

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 mortality, some challenges. You know, when other countries are building 77,000 a year, they've had plenty of chance to get the reliability up. It's a bit like a Toyota. 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. These are the batteries that were installed in the 72 buses. So they're now being replaced. My information from your staff 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 factory at Custom Denning... Simmerys. Simmerys. Yep. ..alongside the Element 2 vehicles, which are the new version of this vehicle, which is, you know, 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 sit in storage because we didn't want unreliable vehicles breaking down. But there again, they needed to sort out with their supplier who is 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 out. So when will the whole 72 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 2s, 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 with me saying they were seriously concerned for the safety.

of the bus and their passengers, 'cause 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 will be drawn from service. That has 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, 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, Howard, it just looks like to me, and I've been to that factory in St Mary's, and it was an announcement made by the previous coalition government saying,

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 Transport for New South Wales a few months ago. We confirmed that diesel generators were being used to power up the buses, which sort of defeats the purpose of the whole thing. Not all the buses, mind you, but some of them. I understand that. But look, the most important thing is...

We want to, and this government wants to support local manufacturing. But you're starting from a fledgling organisation who's working very hard to catch up. You know, we could have, you know, done like many people do, you know, buy a load of off-the-shelf vehicles, you know, entirely from another country, which they make hundreds of thousands of vehicles.

That is 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 companies 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 decade.

three to four years, 1,700 vehicles will be here. The other thing, Clinton, is 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...

a 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 72 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 at the moment because they need new batteries. They ain't on the roads.