A double decker bus arrives during the Closing Ceremony at the National Stadium during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, China. Gareth Copley/PA Archive/PA Images
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An important part an Olympic Games is the symbolic hand over from the current host city to the host city of the next games.
In the big finish to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the Bird’s Nest stadium was invaded by Boris Johnson (then Mayor of London), Leona Lewis and a brand new London bus (above).
London was clearly proud of the New Routemaster – a 21st-century update on of the iconic red doubledecker – and wanted to show it off to the world. Its hybrid diesel-electric engine, however, was no more than a nod to a better future.
To see what that might look like, we have to go back to China, where all-electric buses are transforming public transport.
Jeremy Hodges reports on this revolution for Bloomberg:
“The numbers are staggering. China had about 99 percent of the 385,000 electric buses on the roads worldwide in 2017, accounting for 17 percent of the country’s entire fleet. Every five weeks, Chinese cities add 9,500 of the zero-emissions transporters—the equivalent of London’s entire working fleet, according Bloomberg New Energy Finance.”
The only reasonable response to these numbers is “wow!’ London might also like to ask itself whether it, er, missed the bus.
Of course, a decade ago all-electric buses were still seen as being a long way from going mainstream. Then again, you sometimes have to make the future happen:
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