On Thu, 02 Sep 2004 00:40:22 +0200, =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Gunnar_Th=F6le?=
wrote:

I might be able to explain the gear changes. I suppose these buses are
part of this special european fuel cell project. We have a few of them
here in Hamburg, too, and the bus company explained to me that it was a
standard diesel bus with only the diesel parts removed and an electric
motor dropped in, leaving the transmission and gearbox and everything
intact.

This strikes me as a bit silly and inefficient, seeing as the reason
for having a "changing" gearbox and torque converter/clutch at all on
an internal-combustion engine is because such engines work efficiently
at a very narrow rev range, while electric motors do not suffer the
same restriction.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
To e-mail use neil at the above domain