Alas, the car-swallowing electric bus that straddled entire lanes to soar over gas-guzzling cars, is not only dead in the water - it may have raised money illegally to fund the enterprise.
WIRED originally covered the Transit Elevated Bus (TEB) in summer 2016 (see the original article below), when the 22-metre-long, 4.8-metre-high bus took to the streets of Qinhuangdao, Hebei province.
Read more: WIRED's need-to-know guide to driverless car testing in the UK
The test drive down a 300-metre stretch of road made headlines around the globe. Driving straight over two lanes of traffic, the unfeasible-looking vehicle seemed to be the answer to China’s notorious congestion and pollution problems.
Unfortunately, the bus has been stationary pretty much ever since, leading local government to begin dismantling the special tracks it drives on. Now, it has been announced that police have launched an investigation into how the company behind it had acquired funds, believing the entire project to be a scam.
Quartz identified a report in Chinese posted to social networking site Weibo that points blame at Huaying Kailai, a fundraising platform that was working to raise money for the bus.
It reportedly raised 9.1 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) last year, but was already the subject of a lawsuit from investors. The company that helped design the bus, Autek, was also still owed money.
Weibo reports that 30 people have so far been held by police, including the head of the group, Bai Zhiming, who also happens to be the CEO of a company called TEB Technology Development that owns the patent for the bus. The bus has been stationary in Qinhuangdao due to a shortage of funds, but the Weibo report suggests police are looking to retrieve and return funds from Huaying Kailai.
An elevated bus that straddles roads, carrying passengers over the traffic below, has been tested for the first time in China.
The Transit Elevated Bus (TEB) is powered by electricity and can carry passengers above two lanes of traffic while cars drive underneath it. The 22 metre long, 7.8 metre wide and 4.8 metre high bus trundled along a 300 metre stretch of road in the city of Qinhuangdao, Hebei province, at an excruciatingly slow speed for its inaugural test run, but the finished version should hit speeds of 40 mph.
The spacious interior of each bus looks more like an luxury airport departure lounge than a public bus and can squeeze in 300 passengers at full capacity. Original designs for the TEB showed multiple carriages linked together to carry up to 1,200 passengers.
Designs for the TEB have come on a long way since they debuted at the 19th China Beijing International High-Tech Expo in May 2016. Back then, engineers unveiled a toy-sized model of the TEB while promising that full-sized tests would take place in the second half of 2016.
While they certainly got a move on when it came to getting the bus on – or above – the road, tests still have a long way to go before the TEB is put to real use. The bus didn't navigate any corners on its inaugural test run or deal with any tricky bits of road infrastructure such as crossroads, bridges or traffic lights.
Passengers will board the sixteen-wheeled bus via elevated platforms on the roadside, although commuters in a hurry are still better off taking the subway as no high-speed tests of the bus have taken place yet.
"Its construction can be finished in one year," said Bai Chiming, the engineer in charge of the TEB project when the bus was unveiled in May. Chinese newspaper The People's Daily estimates the buses could be in use by the end of this year.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
