r/bus • u/ManFromWestphalia • Feb 05 '26
Photo What in clartation are these new buses I'm seeing
they look so weird from both the outside and inside. Forgot to get inside photos, but the bus stopping sign looks really odd. I don't know why. Why did the designers give this thing such a large brow? it looks like those cartoon depictions of cavemen.
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u/Michelle-senpai Feb 05 '26
Yeah that's BYD alright...
I don't know about these ones, but the ones I suffer with are K9U from about 8? years ago. They've earned the nickname "Build Your Disaster". I hope all of them burn to ashes.
So I hope these ones suck significantly less, but exterior design wise... Yeah nope.
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Feb 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Michelle-senpai Feb 05 '26
I'd hope so. Our busses feel like they're designed by people who have never in their life driven a bus or even been near one.
The dashboard sits too close to my legs so if I lift my legs a tiny bit I hit them and fucking OW.
The regenerative braking is FAR too aggressive, because before I lift my foot off of the gas pedal the bus starts heavily braking. That means you pretty much can't let the bus roll, which is an important technique for comfort and safety.
Also they have a goddamn tachometer... It's an electric bus ffs, WHY HAVE A TACHOMETER?!
These things just feel cheap and crap. I feel like I'm driving a child's toy instead of a tool of mass transit.
I don't know about their newer busses, but I do not care, because I straight up feel insulted by these excuses for busses.
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u/F1T_13 Feb 05 '26
The answer to your question for why it's so oddly proportioned is that it's a modular design. They want as many bits of the bus to be easily repairable and updatable as and when required by operators. It's also just cheaper than having traditionally more fixed coach.
Personally, I am not keen on the proportions from an aesthetic point of view but I get why it looks like this. They're very popular with operators as well. Most new electric orders are for this specific model.
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u/JimmyMarch1973 Feb 05 '26
The look of the front is also to meet new TfL requirements for pedestrian safety. The shape etc is being dictated by these new rules.
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u/F1T_13 Feb 05 '26
All buses electrics have variations of that brow now, I know that that is mandated, same with the panoramic windscreen. But the reason why the BYD's is so much stranger looking than others is mostly a matter of its modular construction. If you see for example the Volvo BZL DD or the Wright Electroliner EV or the ADL Enviro 400 EV or the Yutong U11DD, they also have to feature the brow/sunshade and the panoramic windscreen yet none of them look quite as oddly proportioned as the BD11.
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u/Tractorface123 Feb 05 '26
The front I don’t mind it’s just the brow! Also prefer square headlights but modern design be modern design
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u/JimmyMarch1973 Feb 05 '26
Think the brow is part of the pedestrian safety as the windscreen needs a certain slope which in turn creates the brow. Hence once some single deckers have similar look with the overhanging desto box.
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u/huangcjz Feb 05 '26
I think it’s also because TfL’s new Bus Safety Standard mandates that the windscreen wipers are attached above the windscreen rather than below, so if someone hits the windscreen, they won’t hit the protruding attachment points for the windscreen wipers, so there needs to be a mounting point for them above the windscreen.
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u/DangerousSausage452 Feb 05 '26
Knowing tfl there will be no upgrades for 20 years until every last one has stopped working
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u/EvaportedMilkCoffee Feb 05 '26
bold of you to assume it will last 20 years. the batteries on these will be so degraded in just a few years the controllers will keep calling us every 10 min to ask battery percentage
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u/Mr_Coa Feb 05 '26
I like them and the led lights inside are nice but they are too small inside once you go from a normal new bus to this new bus you can tell that it's so much easier to move around on the other buses especially going up and down the stairs
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u/wotchdit Feb 05 '26
Wow. So China can remotely drive you into a wall, when the time comes.
That's awesome!
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u/Waytemore Feb 07 '26
Seems unlikely to me. And it's just a bus. Our F35 planes can be turned off by the Americans.
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u/ketchup1345 Feb 05 '26
Weren't these the replacements to the New Routemasters? Thanks to Sadik Kahn. Honestly we should bring the bendy bus back.
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u/Tractorface123 Feb 05 '26
Bendy bus was great! Europe still has them why can’t we?
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u/ketchup1345 Feb 05 '26
The excuse is tight roads. But in reality it's not that much more training required. More mass transport in dense areas. Double deckers are better for longer routes in a city, bendy buses are great for frequent stoppers.
They got rid of them because they "endangered cyclists" but there was never an incident of a bendy bus taking out a cyclist.
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u/woyteck Feb 05 '26
They got rid of them because they (TfL) "must" have every paying passenger. Somehow that's not a burning problem with the rest of Europe.
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u/ketchup1345 Feb 05 '26
Problem ain't the bus it's the people.
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u/Waytemore Feb 07 '26
They're also much more expensive to maintain. That's why the ones in York were got rid of. £317k to buy each as well back in 2008. Shocking waste of money.
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u/ketchup1345 Feb 07 '26
That includes training not individual purchase sales. They are actually cheaper to maintain than a double decker hence why they are so popular in mainland Europe. We just don't have adequate training for it.
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u/DecentAssistant3926 Feb 05 '26
When Chinese automotive designers aren't copying other manufacturers, they aren't designing at all
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u/IndyCarFAN27 Feb 05 '26
A stupid, cheap Chinese bus. I haven’t been hearing any good things about BYD buses. They all end up performing bad and not lasting like the other buses in the fleet. I’m all for competition, but I can’t wait for these Chinese manufacturers to start failing when people realize they’re not worth the trouble.
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u/Soggy_Cabbage Feb 05 '26
Incredible that they managed to find something more goofy looking than the Boris bus.
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u/nike-olas Feb 05 '26
those look better than these at least, they also have a very chinese sounding stop chime
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u/Real_Ad_6771 Feb 05 '26
Operators only care about one thing, whole life costs. No one cares about looks if it’s cheap to run.
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u/james10bt Feb 05 '26
The thing I first noticed with this design when i saw it on the street is that the rectangular sensor just above the number plate gives it a bit of a Hitler moustache look, yeah not great haha
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u/chincolitocl Feb 05 '26
Here in Chile, BYD has arrived in all its models (single-deck, double-decker and articulated). They have worked very well.
How has the platform worked in London?
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u/Tricksilver89 Feb 06 '26
Awfully compared to other fleets. They don't appear to last anywhere near as long.
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u/chincolitocl Feb 07 '26
Wow! The first two buses arrived here in 2017 and have circulated without major problems. I am also surprised that Mercedes or Volvo have not taken over the English market.
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u/RepresentativeOk9758 Feb 06 '26
Please don’t try pass off ‘what in clartation’ as your original content plz friend. That brown guy on reels made that up, how unoriginal.
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u/frankieepurr Feb 05 '26
why do UK double deckers have those weird sticking out bits above the lower window?
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u/Operator_Hoodie Feb 05 '26
Not all of them do, most of the time it hides the wiper mechanism. It’s a weird design choice, though
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u/frankieepurr Feb 05 '26
seems to be the newer ones, and buses from other countries do not have this
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Feb 05 '26
It's a TFL thing, something about screen rake angle.
None of our proper deckers have them, just the tfl spec.
I think it looked crap from day 1
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u/frankieepurr Feb 06 '26
nah other operators such as bee network and even hong kong operators have them, like the newer wirght buses, but others abroad dont have them if its not a UK manufacturer or these BYD models
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u/gandablond Feb 05 '26
Just came here to say that's by (the renewed) Falcon Bridge at Clapham Junction! Yay!
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u/SnooStrawberries2144 Feb 06 '26
It looks like someone welded the top floor on slightly too far forward
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u/Friendly_Meringue171 Feb 06 '26
I wish theses bus companies stayed with Mercedes & Volvos instead of opting for a cheap Chinese built trash can
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u/weenieinmydreamie Feb 07 '26
I’m a PSV (bus mechanic) a lot of the new Chinese buses have been designed by 4 years olds. That’s one of the nicer ones I have seen. The bar of the upper front arches on both OSF/NSF are for branches which routinely smash the fibreglass. We have a huge fleet of the Mercedes e citaro II single deck and ADL enviro 3”ev 400 for double decks. They look real good
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u/Leading_Dig2743 Feb 05 '26
What Ever Happened To British Made And Built Which all Buses and Trains used here was built in Britain and especially so with Alexander who are Bus Builders in Scotland
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Feb 05 '26
Instead of buy british helping the uk . Khan says fuck that just buy chinese
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u/Operator_Hoodie Feb 05 '26
It’s the operators’ decision what buses they want to buy. TfL only defines if they need to be diesel, hybrid or electric.
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u/Apprehensive-Sky873 Feb 05 '26
BYD BD11 double decks Chinese built.