But what was the ideea with the batteries?
I thought in U.S.A. those preconceptions where gone since automatic becamed dominant in the '60's. It's true that an automatic gearbox is more complicated then a manual one (or even an pure mechanical preselector) so the fear of the costs is justified.
Buses used for public transportation by S.T.B. (former R.A.T.B.) - the service transport owned by the Municipality are all automatic gearboxed. Last manual gerabox buses from Bucharest went out of service in 2007-2008... and unfourtnley 99,9% went scraped in stad of servin other cities
Oh, another myth is that vehicles with automatic gearboxes are slow... it was true for the old ones. But the "D.A.F." SB220 * buses introduced in 1994 (all pull over, none of those beauties is in a good shape
) where pretty faster and they had automatic gearboxes. And that was a quarter of century ago. The bus drivers where doing races on Kiseleff Road (Avenue) in the night when went to the garage. Oh, and in pure conditions those gearboxes lasted sometimes even a milion kilometers!!!
In U.S.A. you can get driving licence for automatic gearbox and drive what you like. In Romania (and not only) if you're getting a lincence for automatic gearboxes you're stick to automatic, you don't have the legal right to drive manual gearboxes. Also in Romania there is no option for getting driving licence for only automatic gerabox if you want to drive a truck (I don't about buses).
* in fact "D.A.F." made only the chassie, the axle and the steering. The engines where made by "M.A.N." (Germany), the gearbox by "Voith" (Germany), the body was made in Spain or Greece and the seats in... Romania.