Stand corrected. I was actually on one of Kinetic’s hybrids on Route 901 a couple of weeks ago from Gladstone Park to Melbourne Airport (I was doing a first aid course in Aintree, not far from the bus stop).

Seem to use small batteries (18.5kWh) at very high C rates (120kW recharge, 200kW discharge, poor battery) per the spec sheet https://www.scania.com/content/dam/scanianoe/market/au/products-and-services/buses-and-coaches/spec-sheets/SCA0717-City-Bus-UB4X2-K-Series-spec-sheet_SAU2020-09-KSeries_4x2-v2.pdf

Not sure the arterial routes of the 901 suits this hybrid well as the engine would restart every time the bus moved off, the acceleration to 70 or 80kph being a demanding task.

The bus is now XB65KF (Queensland), though I do not know which operator. I assume Transdev Queensland has it.

You’re right. Ex-3000 was mo8190, not mo8188. My mistake.

Probably gone under the radar for me, as I was only familiar with CDC Melbourne and not the hybrids that are with Kinetic. Stand corrected.

There are a few differences between Australia and Chile worth taking into account though. One is that the existing bus fleet contains many Diesel buses that are very old, with little to no emissions controls, so there is a lot of fleet renovation that is required anyway.

Secondly, Chile’s power grid has a higher number of renewables than Australia, with hydro the main renewable source, but solar and wind are growing rapidly as well. Coal only makes up around 15 percent of capacity, and this is steadily declining. Gas makes up another 15 percent approx, as does Diesel, which is often still used in remote areas not connected to the national grid.

Lastly, although there are private companies operating the buses, the central government makes all buying decisions, and then supplies those vehicles to the operators. So it makes sense to order hundreds at a time, instead of a few dozen.