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US schools can subscribe to an electric bus fleet at lower prices than diesel
- bell-cot 5y agoHmm...buses that (per the article) cost 2x or 3x what diesel ones would. From a company that's raising a whole lotta $$$ from VC's. And (plausibly) school districts will get rid of their old diesel bus fleets when they switch over... Is anyone else suspecting an "of course we'll loose money like crazy, until we hit 'em with the massive price increase" business model? EDIT: Wow, huge response. 3 points to add: - Yes, kids not breathing fumes is better...but that doesn't change the company's nor the school district's finances. - No, I have no good data on whether the "vastly lower TCO will cover the higher up front cost..." theory is 100% correct, or utter BS. - My one not-too-close data point: A friend worked for a metropolitan bus system ~2011. She said they were getting rid of their "~1.4 up-front cost" diesel-electric hybrid buses - because the real TCO was considerably worse than the older, straight-diesel buses.
- pengaru 5y agoThe "subscribed" buses will be privately owned and operated, they'll be increasingly filled with advertising and other predatory bullshit for exploiting the passengers.
- krasin 5y agoDon't forget a snack machine with sweets right inside the bus.
- tentacleuno 5y agoOr... A cold drinks machine, with all the bus windows locked shut. I'm sure I remember something about McDonalds putting more salt in the chips [/ food] so people buy a drink.
- Nasrudith 5y agoSo like city buses?
- arcticbull 5y agoNot really, no. City busses recognize revenue from advertising and use it to subsidize fares. Being a public service, the public benefits. On the other hand, private bus fleets with private advertisements on loan to school districts will recognize that advertising revenue as profit, benefiting shareholders. Not everything needs a profit motive.
- roughly 5y agoI don't know what the split is elsewhere, but it's worth noting that for BART in the Bay Area, at least, makes something like $10m/yr, compared to nearly $500m/yr in actual fares - so, in exchange for approximately 2% of annual revenues, we get BART trains and stations covered in ads. Edit: Thought to look this up for SFMTA - 2020 proposed budget (projections as of 2019, chosen because it's the last "normal" year) - total revenue $1.2Bn, "Advertising, interest, and service fees" $54m.
- woodruffw 5y agoI think that's pretty unlikely, at least with schoolbuses. The US has laws around child privacy and advertising that companies easily flaunt online, but are much more difficult to flaunt when your product is a physical bus. OTOH, I would not be surprised to see these buses rusting in a storage lot within a decade because these firms have closed up shop and some random server somewhere is no longer responding to requests. I hope (but am not hopeful) that municipal and state governments take measures during procurement to ensure that they aren't being turned into captive customers.
- AdamN 5y agoCaptivate screens behind each seat with 'educational' content and pre-roll/banner ads. "We're giving kids extra education through new technology and they also learn about the value of chocolate sugar milk at the same time!"
- Johnny555 5y agoThe average lifetime of a schoolbus is 10 - 12 years, so if they do manage to keep this service going for a decade, that's pretty good -- in 10 years the schol district would have been ready to refresh their fleet anyway, and hopefully the reason this business can't survive long-term is that electric buses become cheaper and ubiquitous.
- adgjlsfhk1 5y agoPart of the reason for the 10-12 year lifespan is that ICE motors are really complicated and at a certain point, it's cheaper to throw out the bus than pay for motor repairs. EV motors last a lot longer and are a lot easier to maintain.
- akomtu 5y agoAre batteries going to last this long? And batteries are usually 50% of the vehicle price.
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- elliekelly 5y ago“You’re only two bus rides away from your next Robux reward!”
- AlgorithmicTime 5y agoLiterally all the school buses in my area are operated by private companies which contract with the local public school districts. None of them are full of advertising.
- gruez 5y ago>they'll be increasingly filled with advertising and other predatory bullshit for exploiting the passengers What's this based on ? AFAIK many school districts already contract out their school bus service. Are we seeing that in those cases?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- sockaddr 5y agoWhile not ideal, the alternative is kids continuing to sit in buses that idle for long periods of time slowly leaking diesel exhaust into the cabin area (at least that was the case with the Bluebird models I rode as a kid), that can't be good.
- bnt 5y agoYea, here the batteries catch fire and a bunch of kids burn to death. Grim, but possible.
- Johnny555 5y agoNot likely, not without being in a serious accident. Despite the Chevy Bolt's highly publicized battery fires (which did not kill anyone), EV batteries don't usually burst into flames unprovoked. The battery will be well protected in a school bus frame.
- pavon 5y agoICE vehicles have orders of magnitude higher fire risk than EV. https://www.kbb.com/car-news/study-electric-vehicles-involved-in-fewest-car-fires/ https://www.kbb.com/car-news/study-electric-vehicles-involve...
- thehappypm 5y agoRight, because diesel buses are totally not flammable at all.
- PaulHoule 5y agoI bought a number of plastic "jerry cans" that all had stickers on them saying you shouldn't use gasoline or diesel to start fires. Oddly the reason why is different for the two fluids. Gasoline can catch fire quickly and form a fireball, whereas diesel is hard to ignite and won't help start a fire. This movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_5th_Wave_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_5th_Wave_(film) has a scene where the kids set a school bus on fire with the fuel which isn't realistic.
- bend-or-end 5y ago>That starts with phasing the purchase and deployment of electric school buses — which still cost two to three times more than their diesel counterparts — to take advantage of expected declines in cost over the coming years, McIntyre said. Sounds like the model is to be the first mover and being entrenched by the time it's profitable without a price hike
- scythe 5y agoFrankly, if they rip off school districts in order to keep kids from inhaling nitrogen dioxide, that's still a better business model than most of the ones I've heard.
- mirntyfirty 5y agoI think that depends on the extent to which they rip them off.
- scythe 5y agoI guess you're probably right. But it seems like we're looking at a small factor (2-3) applied to the usual price of a school bus. Of course, there are also reasons it might not be a ripoff, as others brought up (lower ops costs, economy of scale). I just felt like highlighting the problems with prioritizing price over all else around the health of primary schoolchildren.
- vardump 5y ago> Hmm...buses that (per the article) cost 2x or 3x what diesel ones would. What about when you consider total life cycle costs? Diesel fuel costs often many times of cost of the vehicle over its lifespan. Fuel costs will likely increase quite a bit in the future.
- jandrese 5y agoThe upfront price difference should be offset in the long term by buying cheap electricity instead of expensive diesel.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoThis is a fairly standard reframing when your product has lower TCO but higher upfront costs. If people just look at the upfront cost, they have that 2x or 3x gut reaction and just switch off. Some nerdier types might draw up a spreadsheet and know exactly how many months they'd expect to break even and start saving. People familiar with spreadsheets probably also don't have that much trouble getting loans and paying them back on time, and doing even more sums to see if that makes financial sense. But your average school bus buyer perhaps needs someone else to do all that for them, hedge the risk and present it to them as an immediate saving on their monthly spend. People have sold rooftop solar this way, or replaced kerosene lamps in Africa with solar and batteries, and EVs Vs monthly Car payment plus fuel.
- roughly 5y agoIt's not just the cost over time, it's the availability of capital in large clumps - also known as "the cost of being poor:" It may be 5x cheaper in the long run to pay 3x the cost today, but if you don't have 3x the cost today, well, good luck.
- JumpCrisscross 5y agoCapex <=> Opex swaps are pretty common, and it's not just a matter of poverty. (It's why airlines lease their planes.) Swap "subscribe" with "lease" and this article becomes less interesting.
- roughly 5y ago> Swap "subscribe" with "lease" and this article becomes less interesting To VCs, too
- anonymouse008 5y agoYeah, and school's budgets are cash tight, with comparatively little ability to fundraise, so any large cash transaction will be DOA. The swap should take place, and I'm now wondering why this hasn't occurred.
- ihsw 5y agoThe play is in vehicle-to-grid (V2G) electric price arbitrage, the article even mentions that a full third of the revenue from the program is coming from selling V2G power generation back to the grid.
- joe_the_user 5y agoA fair portion of school districts already contract their buses to First Student and similar bus companies. And if this company were to raise it's rates drastically, the districts could switch to First Student.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- coryrc 5y ago> She said they were getting rid of their "~1.4 up-front cost" diesel-electric hybrid buses - because the real TCO was considerably worse In my city, the original hybrids used Toyota Prius batteries and deep cycled them, which they weren't designed for, killing them and requiring regular replacements. That couldn't have been good for the budget.
- michael1999 5y agoIt is a different calculation for the school board. For them, the costs of retraining staff, retooling a shop, increasing parts inventory are all big costs. Plus the risk of buying a bunch of lemons. Leasing them with performance guarantees moves not just the costs, but also the risks to a specialist better suited to carrying them. I don’t know if this firm is legit, but the deal could make sense.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- sanp 5y agoI still don't get that TCO for EV is higher than Diesel. On the consumer side, let's look at Tesla Model Y vs. Lexus RX 350. I am using "premium" makes on both sides of this equations. If we want to go with a cheaper ICE then it should be compared with a cheaper EV. Idea being, there is a reasonable comparison where EV comes out ahead on TCO. Cost / mile: $0.04 vs. $0.10 Difference in purchase cost: $55K (base model Lexus) vs $59K (base model). Include $7500 Fed Credit this comes to ~$56K (assuming a 35% marginal tax rate) Average miles per year: 12K. So fuel savings of ~$720 Even assuming a very generous cost of capital even TCO over 2 years beats ICE. That's before maintenance costs (which seem to be lower for EV).
- akira2501 5y agoHow many Diesel repair shops are there vs. heavy duty EV vehicle repair shops?
- Symbiote 5y agoPlenty, according to the presentation linked elsewhere in this discussion. Cummins (the major manufacturer of engines, generators etc) will service the high voltage parts of the bus.
- gregshap 5y agoTax credits are dollar for dollar reduction in taxes owed. There's no reason to apply a marginal tax rate.
- sanp 5y agoNot sure I follow. The effective benefit of this tax break is different based on your tax bracket. So, we should be using the marginal tax rate.
- xxpor 5y agoA tesla won't get the tax credit any more (they've sold too many cars). Unless that's changed with one of the covid packages.
- fasteddie31003 5y agoI believe batteries and electric motors can replace almost all applications of gas engines. However, diesel engines still are a step too far now IMO. Most people have never operated a diesel engine. Their efficiency is very impressive. My 7,000 lbs truck with a Cummins diesel engine gets better MPGs than my partner's 4,000 lbs Mini Cooper Countryman.
- danans 5y ago> Most people have never operated a diesel engine. Their efficiency is very impressive. All else equal (vehicle class, size, performance, driving style), the operating cost per mile of an EV is 1/4 to 1/2 the operating cost per mile of a diesel or gasoline vehicle, even in states with very expensive electricity like California or Hawaii.
- ilikeatari 5y agoIs there a specific data set you are referencing? How about other components like Ownership and Support?
- danans 5y agoI've just done the math on my car operating costs. At today's gas prices (admittedly high due to the Ukraine war), the price of electricity in CA would have to more than triple for me to pay the same as I would for gas. Before the recent gas price spike it was like 2.25X to use gas. > How about other components like Ownership and Support? Do you mean depreciation and maintenance? Depreciation on recent EVs has been just like other types of vehicles in their respective classes. Granted, these are relatively new cars - there isn't much longitudinal data on EV maintenance, but every indication is that it should be less than ICE vehicles. And can you put a price on the great driving experience of an EV (flat power curve, low center of gravity, silent, no combustion smell)? Probably, but I haven't tried.
- stonogo 5y agoMy results are similar to yours. I don't know if you can put a price on silent, non-oil-based, clean-running driving experiences, but it does come with the charge-time pain point. I look forward to the five-minute refuel I left behind to get the other benefits of an EV...
- PaulHoule 5y agoI ride on an electric bus a few times a week.. https://tcatbus.com/its-electric-on-the-ithaca-commons/ https://tcatbus.com/its-electric-on-the-ithaca-commons/
- jillesvangurp 5y agoPlenty of electric buses driving around in Berlin where I live as well. Very nice when I bike through town. Nothing worse than getting stuck behind a stinking old diesel engine. Shenzen in China switched all of their city buses to electric a few years ago. They have tens of thousands of them driving around there.
- elihu 5y agoApparently there's an important patent on lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries that expires next month (on April 27th). I'm hoping that changes the economics on batteries and that LFPs become cheap and abundant, and widely available from a variety of manufacturers that aren't located in China. LFP seems like the obvious choice for large vehicles like buses unless there's some reason to really need to optimize for range. In schoolbuses especially, it would be good to use a kind of battery that's much less likely to catch on fire.
- speedgoose 5y agoIs safety a criteria for school bus in USA? I thought it was only cost since the design is from the last century and many bus don’t even have seatbelts.
- xxpor 5y agoSeat belts have been required in some states for decades at this point. We had them on buses when I was in elementary school 20 years ago, in NJ. Now... getting kids to actually use them is a different matter.
- horsawlarway 5y agoIn many of the most common situations - they just don't matter that much on a school bus. The bus is generally the largest vehicle on the road, and an impact from a car (or even pickup truck/suv) is unlikely to significantly move the bus. Plus - the sit very high, and impacts tend to drive the other vehicle down - rather than moving the body of the bus. The only situation they really are useful is when the bus rolls, and for buses that aren't driving highway speeds (which is most of them), they almost never roll (the only exception is essentially driver error - where the bus leaves the road on slope)
- jws 5y agoThe NHTSA recognizes that large busses are not cars and use a different solution. Large school buses are heavier and distribute crash forces differently than passenger cars and light trucks do. Because of these differences, bus passengers experience much less crash force than those in passenger cars, light trucks, and vans. NHTSA decided the best way to provide crash protection to passengers of large school buses is through a concept called “compartmentalization.” This requires that the interior of large buses protect children without them needing to buckle up. Through compartmentalization, children are protected from crashes by strong, closely-spaced seats that have energy-absorbing seat backs. Statistics bear this out, taking a school bus to school is about 70 times more likely to deliver a student safely. In this context, 70 is huge.
- chillingeffect 5y agoNice thing about this application is the predictability of the routes. And compared to city buses the ratio of time driving per regen is larger. I assume drain and recharge puts wear on the batteries?
- ilikeatari 5y agoPersonally I am very exited about it but we lack data that does allow us to do proper TCO comparison of ICE vs EV on the heavy duty side. Also how does V2G economics actually work if you are trying to optimize for the lowest charging rate (usually during night to avoid peak)? If you are in V2G mode after 6 pm i assume you would need to start charging at night during cheapest rates and assure that the bus is charged by 5 am. Wouldn't this require 1 to 1 charger to bus ratio as you might not have enough time to swap? Wouldn't then infrastructure costs(chargers that are build and concrete around it) skyrocket?
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> we lack data that does allow us to do proper TCO comparison of ICE vs EV on the heavy duty side These districts have transferred that risk to the provider. Which seems reasonable.
- ilikeatari 5y agoYes, makes sense from the districts perspective, but I meant from sustainability of the business model perspective.
- sokoloff 5y agoAny overnight charging solution almost surely needs a 1-to-1 ratio anyway, because you're probably not going to pay an expensive and unreliable human to plug and unplug buses overnight every night when a charger will last 10+ years. You're already paying the bus driver to park the bus and to drive it away in the morning. Add a minute of bus driver labor to plug it in and a minute to unplug it in the morning.
- colincooke 5y agoDue to the usage patterns of the bus fleet I wonder if they could be used for some vehicle to grid [1] power bank on weekends/during weekday downtime? It might shorten the lifetime of the batteries themselves but would be a nice additional revenue stream. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid
- ElevenLathe 5y agoThese services are already outsourced in many school districts, with the district doing nothing more than contracting out for certain service levels and writing a check. Presumably if it pencils out, those contractors will switch to electric without even needing to consult the board of education.
- anonymouse008 5y agoDo you mind pointing to a few companies who offer said contract services? Is it mostly a metropolitan thing?
- kasey_junk 5y agoChicago Public Schools has dozens of bus contractors. Here is one that is relatively big: https://www.unitedquick.com/ https://www.unitedquick.com/ You can find bus contracts given to the owners of single busses though those firms do t have large web presences.
- MengerSponge 5y agoThe secondary costs of running a diesel fleet are also huge! Diesel motors generate a substantial amount of fine particulate that is unhealthy for anybody, and particularly unhealthy for children. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC121970/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC121970/ Even if an electric fleet is the same cost, changing over would save tons of money and alleviate tons of suffering. It's the right thing to do for any ethical reason you can consider. Unless, I suppose, you're intent on making the poor suffer. Diesel buses are very cost-effective at accomplishing that.
- jjtheblunt 5y ago(Disclaimer: have driven pure electric for going on 7.5 years) It may be more complex: electricity generation is very dirty in some regions, such as where coal is burned. Is it more dirty than diesel emissions? I have no idea, but old diesels were nasty.
- sp332 5y agoIt's much cleaner, even after accounting for losses in electricity transport and storage. Power plants are just much more efficient than mobile internal combustion engines.
- mywittyname 5y agoLet's not forget the diesel emissions cheating scandal. Diesel engines are so amazingly difficult deal with from an emissions perspective that it's basically impossible to build one with an emissions system that doesn't require constant maintenance (filters, additives). Diesel emissions requirements for commercial vehicles are much more lenient for this reason.
- shiftpgdn 5y agoYes because the coal burning is done at a central location with fairly advanced technology to capture dirty hydrocarbons. The tailpipe is spreading soot all over.
- deleted 5y ago
- GrumpyNl 5y agoA better alternative is the trolley bus, no batteries needed. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-51034523 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-51034523
- jabroni_salad 5y agothat's excellent for city busses that run all day with good frequency, but I would not say so for school busses, whose reason to exist is to collect students that live far away from the school for one specific commute only. Should the municipality really build out overhead powerlines for 20 miles of cornfields just for one passenger needing only 2 trips per day, possibly less if that student has after-school activities?
- tpmx 5y agoShorter routes and longer idle periods mean that school buses can be charged at lower intensities over longer periods of time than commercial vehicles that have to charge quickly to get back on the road Most relevant sentence in this article.
- aurizon 5y agoA niche opened up, buy ebusses, lock school boards into 10-20 year contracts to save 10-20% on fuels costs and have zero capital/maintenance costs. The bus company lives on the ~~60-70% fuels cost saving and finances the bus fleet. Typical contract to see to various users with short terms viewpoints. I would like to see what the board savings are in a sample of a lease - most will be under NDA's I expect?
- asdff 5y agoNiche is already exploited. School boards have already been contracting out busing. Diesel/CNG contractors will just retool and charge more for green tax to school boards that want to pay.
- rootusrootus 5y ago> most will be under NDA's I expect? What are the odds that school districts are even legally allowed to sign such an NDA?
- aurizon 5y agoHard to say. Most contracts are public access files. but I am not sure if there are redactions for competitive reasons?
- rootusrootus 5y agoTo prove I'm an optimist, I'll say that most levels of government in the US must have transparency regulations that would prevent them from being bound by any kind of NDA. Otherwise the potential for corruption is pretty significant. Like I said, I'm an optimist. If you trust google search, my 2 minute research suggests the federal government explicitly disallows NDAs from binding them, and that in government overall NDAs are really rare. But that information is worth roughly how much it cost me to search for it.
- aurizon 5y agoYes, That fits. People need transparency as far as possible. For example, prison phone systems are onerous monopolies that oppress prisoners with enormous connection fees. Apparently the various prisons accept bids = the largest fee paid to the prison system is the winner - who then extract the max fees from inmates. The spectrum auction looks, on the face of it, to be a simple bidding process. Sadly the winners than pay billions to the feds and the winners then extort cell phone and internet users for fees - in the mean time, those billions that could have made US wideband universal and lower in cost are sucked into the political maw and wasted, oligarch style = USA lags behind dozens of countries due to this corruption.
- me_me_mu_mu 5y agoWhen I was a kid like 15 years ago we'd walk to school if it was close. I took the bus until middle school which was like 1 mile away. I hope car usage goes down, especially a single person driving a big SUV. Walk, or bike, to where you need to go. Less cars, more safe.
- mike_d 5y agoI'm glad your parents were in an economic situation where you could live walking distance from school in a neighborhood safe enough to do so. Only 9% of students in the US live within a reasonable walking distance.
- lucastheisen 5y agowhat is a reasonable walking distance? 9% seems like a surprisingly small number.
- me_me_mu_mu 5y agoJust looked at CDC website it says fewer than 20%. Suburbs have been the only place where I’ve seen lots of yellow busses because everything is so spread out. Idk where that dude got his numbers, go to any city in the USA and you'll see kids taking public transit to school aka walking. https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2016/15_0573.htm#:~:text=Estimates%20vary%2C%20but%20studies%20generally,support%20(12%E2%80%9314) https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2016/15_0573.htm#:~:text=Esti....
- mike_d 5y ago> go to any city in the USA and you'll see kids taking public transit to school aka walking The majority of children do not live in cities. Most people move to suburban/urban areas when they have kids.
- Broken_Hippo 5y agoNot every school system provides transportation, and when they do, some states (maybe all?) require that transportation be provided by a yellow school bus and not a city bus. (My father ran into this in Indiana). I'm gonna guess that in at least some of these areas, they walk/take busses because the school system doesn't provide transportation.
- mostly_harmless 5y agoFor those questioning the feasibility, 100% electric school buses are already on the road in Montreal. I see them frequently, and they seem to handle our crappy roads and winters fine.
- wolverine876 5y agoWhy would electric buses have more problems on winter roads than ICE buses?
- krallja 5y agoIt’s cold in the winter.
- ajford 5y agoCold air impacting heath & capacity on the Li batteries, perhaps? Lithium batts tend to be finicky about their temperatures. Even my PHEV chevy volt de-rates the capacity if the ambient air temps hit less than 36*F.
- wongarsu 5y agoHeating the batteries and passenger compartment is quite expensive energy-wise, you certainly have to calculate that in when determining an appropriate battery size for such an application.
- ajford 5y agoDefinitely something to consider. I wonder if there's some value to a secondary/supplemental seasonal battery that can be added for part of the year to handle the extra load. Would come down to whether the installation/removal (to lower the "dry" weight for the warm seasons) would be worth the energy savings of not hauling around the supplemental battery weight. Other options might be to use some kind of thermal mass for heating, perhaps a large heated mass or fluid tank? Not sure if there's any benefit there though beyond being able to swap out the fluid tank between runs faster than charging a battery.
- roamerz 5y agoCheaper for the school districts themselves maybe. I’d like to see an honest article that included the overall cost to taxpayers as well.
- guerby 5y agoFor those curious about EV bus including maintenance vs diesel EEVBlog has one episode on a private company switching to EV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKs3LytrICA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKs3LytrICA
- caseysoftware 5y agoBusses as a Service from a venture-backed company in a ridiculously volatile market.. What happens if/when they run out of funding? Having a business productivity app go out of business with an "amazing journey" post is irritating but there are 50 other apps that will take their place. Introducing "as a service" here where there are serious legal and even civil rights issues in play is radically different.
- bobthepanda 5y agoI mean, this is how aircraft and trains (and yes, even buses) get leased these days, particularly in the EU. Vehicle depreciation is a massive headache.
- octoberfranklin 5y agoThose fleet lessors are not the manufacturers. If the lessor goes belly-up, you can lease the exact same model of plane/train/etc from one of their competitors.= If Boeing's financial stability depended on the sucess of one particular aircraft lessor, that would be a huge problem.
- olivermarks 5y ago'Out of the roughly 500,000 school buses in the U.S., only about 0.2 percent — just over 1,000 — were electric as of the end of 2021' I can see EV buses being practical for future urban short distance pickup and drop off, but the longer haul rural routes, especially in cold climates, seem a long way off to the EV obsessed as a solution to anything. Huge subsidies and grants may seduce a few school boards but the reality is diesel loads replaced by EV are no where near ready for prime time. What could immediately help the local pollution aspects of EV heavy vehicles is some sort of tire particulate collection device to stop spread. Tire pollution is a huge problem that is probably more important than where energy is obtained from near or far https://www.greencarcongress.com/2020/03/20200308-emissionsanalytics.html https://www.greencarcongress.com/2020/03/20200308-emissionsa...
- rootusrootus 5y agoAverage total route length is 75 miles per day. A Blue Bird electric bus, as a comparison point, has a range of 120 miles. So not all routes will be feasible with that bus, but a large number will be a perfect fit.
- rconti 5y agoSo what you're saying is, there's a huge market opportunity between "0.2%" and "everything other than longer haul routes in cold climates"?
- olivermarks 5y agoThat 'market' is already being served by existing vehicles. If we are interested in reducing pollution read the link I posted.
- tigeba 5y agoJust as an interesting note, our school district has switched the entire fleet (around 150) to CNG. This has supposedly reduced opex substantially over diesel. Also a huge reduction in particulates. Probably not as clean as EV but an improvement . Our district owns all their vehicles, but I believe this is not common.
- coward123 5y agoThis topic triggers me a bit because along with rants about CRT, masking, book banning, etc one of the buried topics among the loonies who have berated and attacked our school boards was that they were against electric buses. This is despite good info at least in our district that making the move would yield considerable savings over the service life. So point being, if you are following what's happening in your school district and there's an active group of nutjobs, don't be surprised to see them lash out against this too. I truly about fell out of my chair in shock the first time I heard one of these fools go off on a rant about masks that culminated in a monolog about electric buses taking away our freedom.
- mleonhard 5y agoZum is an electric schoolbus provider mentioned in the article. Their headquarters in near SF, in Redwood City. They're hiring engineers: https://www.ridezum.com/corporate-hq-hiring.html https://www.ridezum.com/corporate-hq-hiring.html It looks like they're modernizing the whole student transportation process: apps for parents/drivers/school admins, dynamic routing, monitoring, and metrics. They claim 20% reduction in student commute times. That's a big quality of life improvement. I think the job would be quite interesting: geo, real-time, mobile, web, embedded, physical infrastructure, optimization, diverse user base, and many human factors. They're well-funded so probably pay decently. The office photos show a large open plan, which could be an acoustic hellscape, like Google SF Spear St. If the space has enough sound-absorbing panels and dividers and quiet floors then it could be ok. Can any of you comment on the work environment?
- graycat 5y agoYes, without any really careful data, I've guessed that electric could be cheaper. But already??? Really???? Or are we talking some subsidies??? So, in the OP, now I see: "A 2020 study conducted by Atlas Public Policy for Washington state indicated that falling battery costs and rising manufacturing volumes should bring electric school buses within total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) parity with fossil-fueled buses by 2030." Hmm ... 2030??? Then I notice: "While most of its projects have started small, CEO Duncan McIntyre sees the Montgomery County project — now at 25 electric buses and set to expand to 326 over the next four years — as the model for the future." So, from 100 * 25 / 326 = 7.669% we're talking so far a little less than 8% of the fleet. So full EV (electric vehicle) has a way to go. Now I'm wondering .... Now I notice near the beginning: "Billions of dollars of federal and state grants and incentives are flowing to U.S. school districts to help them electrify their fleets." "Billions"? Now I understand! Same as usual: (1) Always look for the hidden agenda. (2) Follow the money. Next, the bus fleet is in Montgomery County, Maryland. I used to live there. Relatively wealthy place! Lot of money! Lot of interest in social issues! Close to DC, the main money pot! Next, what's this with a fleet of 326 busses??? What the ...??? So many busses? Are they in the school business or the bus business? Sounds like could run quite a good school system just for the costs of 326 busses. In my school, grades 1-12, there were no busses. 97+% of the kids went on to college -- not a bad school system. The year before me, three guys went to Princeton and two of them ran against some third guy for President of the Freshman Class. In my year, MIT came recruiting. The guy who did go to MIT -- I beat him by a little on the Math SAT. Must have been an OK school. Kids got to and from school on their own, rain, shine, hot, cold, ice, snow, or clear. One good way was to WALK. Another was a bicycle. But, no school busses. Want to save money on 326 Diesel busses? Good. Here's a way, and get to save on not just 8% of the fleet but all of it, and get the savings tomorrow and don't have to wait until 2030. Uh, and save $billions. How to do this magic, more amazing than anything electrical??? Easy: Junk all the busses. Done. Lesson: No matter how productive the US economy might be from automation or whatever, various interest groups can get with government and waste the gains. E.g., there in Monkey County, a lot of the people were, likely are, living in apartments they RENT. They'd be MUCH better off OWNING a single family detached house. Next, I just got a direct message from Darwin: The birth rate in Monkey County is less than 2 per woman. Sooooo, the population is shrinking. The people of Monkey County who want busses instead of schooling are going -- I have the word right here -- extinct. If the government were wasting less, there could be more motherhood, and the moms could work out how to get the kids to/from school without 326 busses.
- tormock 5y agoat 4 miles per gallon and skyrocketing gas prices, it doesn't surprise me....
- buggythebug 5y agoHave met the owner. Stand up guy
- xyzzy21 5y agoIf this is merely subsidized electric, it says nothing about long-term sustainability of choosing it instead of diesel. Thermodynamically electricity is dubious at best - you have 50% efficiency off the top that can never be eliminated - at least with heat engines you have the option of higher compression or temperatures or pressure to boost beyond 50%. Electrical never can.
- HelixEndeavor 5y agoSchool buses are one of those areas I'm surprised EV's haven't completely consumed already. They basically play to every single strength EVs have.
- dillondoyle 5y agoGreat news. Buses and government vehicles are perfect for electric. They go back to dedicated parking lots perfect for charging. We desperately need to force electric vehicles for the upcoming USPS replacements too. The funding / reform bill passed, but as far as I can tell it does not mandate or address the fleet. DeJoy said he was replacing with gas. There was a proposed bill but I can't find any recent news on it. Ridiculous to spend that much money on 100% custom built vehicles that are gas powered.
- clarge1120 5y agoDo schools rent busses today, or is this new?
- andrewallbright 5y agoI get a little suspicious. Are we comparing both solutions at scale, or just one at scale and the other at a smaller scale? The question boils down to: how many people are both systems currently moving. What would it take to build up the other system to operate at the first system's scale?
- humanrebar 5y agoWhat is the range on these? In rural area, yellow busses need to travel for two hours morning and night. And for extra-curricular activities, like transportation to away games, drives can last five hours or more.
- sagarm 5y agoMost Americans don't live in rural areas.