> Actually, the answer may surprise you! My experience has been that the electric buses can be louder than their diesel equivalents. Like a lot of things this

> Actually, the answer may surprise you! My experience has been that the electric buses can be louder than their diesel equivalents. Like a lot of things this will depend on the make and model. In San Francisco, Muni bought a bunch of Skoda electric trolleys in the early 2000s. They were extremely loud compared to their predecessors and their replacements. Muni also bought some Cummins powered diesel buses around the same time. Those too were extremely loud (roughly 90 dB at not-so-far-away distances), but 90 dB was loud enough to gain some traction with Cummins and Neoplan. Still, these buses were far less grating to me than the old two-stroke diesels (it's a beautiful whine from a mechanical standpoint, but not something I want to hear a few times an hour driving past my house). > Exhaust smell is not something I've particularly noticed from the remaining diesel busses. California is well off in this regard, I can't remember seeing more than one or two trucks belching smoke. Even in Europe I don't remember the interior of the buses smelling much of diesel exhaust -- and they shouldn't, you really don't want to expose your passengers to exhaust fumes. Cuba was an interesting contrast as they burn some of the lowest grade diesel fuel around (and most things are diesel these days). The smell of high sulfur diesel is unlike anything I've smelled before.