On April 24, Nankai Rinkan Bus began operating the BYD K8 2.0, a large route-type electric bus introduced in the service area of the Koyasan Office. The new bus was designed to match Nankai Electric Railway’s new sightseeing train “GRAN Tenku,” which began service on the same day, and its exterior is also unified with a design depicting rhododendrons and other flowers in gold on a deep red base.
The company has a fleet of 40 buses, 20 of which will be deployed at the Hashimoto Sales Office, where the head office is located, and 20 at the Koyasan Sales Office in front of Koyasan Station. Of these, six buses, or about one-third of those at the Koyasan Sales Office, have been replaced by K8s (Wakayama 230A 581-586).
At first, some drivers were negative about the introduction of the system, but after actually driving the system, they were generally positive about it. When we interviewed the drivers on the day of the event, many of them said that although they were a bit hesitant because of the different controls and the tendency to step on the clutch, “driving was easy,” and that “opening and closing doors was very smooth.
In conjunction with the introduction of electric buses, a charger capable of charging at 50 kW has been installed in front of Koyasan Station. Since the buses on this route travel about 100 km per day, they are not recharged while in operation, but are recharged after the buses close for the day. The area has the second most stringent of the five levels of environmental regulations set by Wakayama Prefecture, and the installation of the chargers required consultation with the government. As a result, the main unit and cables are colored brown.
Incidentally, this is the 500th BYD electric bus introduced in Japan since its first introduction in 2015 (230A585 in Wakayama).
© Source travel watch