Awww cute . . . like a big green floppy-eared bun!!

It may need to be plugged in, but it would be folly to pass up all that roof acreage - a 30x7 array can yield 2000 watts around here, Australia will get more, and more yet if they use cutting edge panels.

Chattanooga has electric buses, but I don't think they use solar electric recharging facilities.

Come on. It's not like the world is full of good-looking buses...

it looks like a giant bug... good choice of color.. the one lame thing about the world "going green" is all the manufacturers think GREEN is a good color...

@elhigh: 2000 watts is less than 3 horsepower. I'm not sure what that's gonna do for a bus. I suppose that's better than nothing, but it's not gonna come anywhere near running that bus.

Looks like the producers of Shrek 4 have found the perfect billboard.

It rained every damn day I was there. Melbourne too.

This would NOT be a viable proposition in the Pacific Northwest... no sunlight=no solar bus hoonage. But here in L.A. or over in Phoenix it'd probably work well.

Yes, all that Aussie sunlight also makes them melanoma central, alas. There should be enough solar power there to run everything!

Now transplant this technology into an old ACF Brill bus or a cloned Futureliner body and maybe I'll be interested.

So it's mostly an electric bus that happens to be charged via solar panels? Still mighty green, but at first I thought they had somehow managed to actually make a solar powered bus that just ran off of it's own solar panels-guess that's not realistic for some time to come =(

Spellchecker not working?

One too many "i"'s in there..

/end spelling nazi

@elhigh:

They also have choo-choos

@lascauxcaveman: Why the hell would you want to go to Adelaide in the first place. An unusual desire to be dissolved in acid in bank vaults? And everyone knows the weather is crappy in Melbourne.

Umm... on topic - Hopefully the electric bus has some go, I hated having to catch the CNG buses in Sydney, they were so much slower than the turbo diesels.

And that's part of the problems with alternative energy cars. Why can't they make a car that is efficient but doesn't look freakin' ridiculous? It can't be that hard.

@wild zero: Actually, it was a long car trip with my then girlfriend, now wife, going roughly Murwillumbah - Byron Bay - Dubbo - Wangaratta - Melbourne - Adelaide - Melbourne - Snowy Mountains - Canberra - Sydney - Hunter Valley - Port McQuairie - Murwillumbah. Lots of stops and sidetrips I can't remember the names of.

And actually, I loved Melbourne. After five months in Oz, I was homesick for Seattle. those two towns are about as close as you can get, being separated by 12,000 miles and all.

Ok, I have to admit that bus is cool, but before anyone else asks this, Will it Blend?

that looks a hell of a lot like the zhang jia jie tour buses.

but those arnt very environmentally friendly

@wild zero: Bizarre serial killings aside, Adelaide ain't THAT bad - and our whoopee-weed is excellent (plus we don't mix it with tobacco like some perverts in the eastern states do - ick!). Solar charged electric bus sounds kinda cool to me - though not as cool as a fleet of Mazda Parkway Rotary 26s. Much less environmentally friendly & possibly slower - but more awesome.

A dull aide:

Coopers Beer is better than most.

A Pie Floater (Meat Pie floating in Mushy Pea soup) beats the wacky weed munchies

Your Pontiac G8 will be produced there by the bucket bong crowd.

They have the worlds only bus that rides on it's own concrete train tracks and when you lay under as it goes past at 65mph try not to get sucked into vortex of it's undercarriage.

Can't say anything else good about my old home town. Can the last one to leave please turn off the lights?

But Lascaux. Your right about Melbourne. It's about as a good a city can get without it being Vancouver.

@jpech: Power is power. And as the bus decelerates, or is paused at a bus stop or stoplight, that energy can just pile up in a battery until needed. Everything that reduces the need for the ICE is a good thing.

What a roach. Gimme an 8V-92 hanging behind that Rockwell, er, Meritor drive axle any day!

And jeez, I HATE those new style mirrors. Well, they're not so new anymore I suppose. Still don't like 'em though.