5 ms·

Oakland's new school buses reduce pollution and double as giant batteries

88 points by rntn 2y ago

dmoy 2y ago
> 1300 students So for a big city like Oakland... this is what, 5% or less of the student body? Most kids just take city buses or walk or drive or whatever, yea?
- jerlam 2y ago
  > Oakland Unified only provides bus services for its special-need students California has the lowest percentage of students taking the bus of all US states, thanks to Prop 13: https://www.kqed.org/news/11980715/11980715-revision-v1 https://www.kqed.org/news/11980715/11980715-revision-v1
  - zdragnar 2y ago
    Reading the article, it's clear the reason is the state froze the budget in 1982 and left it that way for 40 years. As with everything else in California, they could have done something about it, and didn't.
    - kelnos 2y ago
      I'm sure the reason they froze the budget, though, is because they couldn't fund it further. Whether or not the lack of growth in funding is due to Prop 13 is not something I care to figure out or verify, but it sounds plausible.
      - zdragnar 2y ago
        > lack of growth in funding The article also states that the growth of the fund is legally limited to cost of living increases. Since this is a state wide law for a state defined budget, the solution is simple: repeal the law (which they did in 2022) and allocate funds to it from a different program, or with a new tax, such as a sales or income tax increase. This is how they do a lot of things. I seem to recall at one point a rep wanted to add a tax to blueberries so they could create a blueberry commission to advertise California blueberries in other states. I think they do this already for other crops like avocados, though I'm not sure if it ever actually became a thing. In any case, all of the legal levers have existed to fix the problem. They simply chose not to.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    OUSD contracts with the local bus agency, AC Transit, to run special lines for schools.
- grecy 2y ago
  > this is what, 5% or less of the student body? The goal is improvement, not perfection. We have to start somewhere, and this is a very good start.
throwaway742 2y ago
>All the while, fiercer heat waves will require more energy-hungry air conditioning to keep people healthy. (Though ideally, everyone would get a heat pump instead.) Isn't an AC already a heat pump?
- maxerickson 2y ago
  Yes, but in the consumer space heat pump typically implies that it can heat and cool. In principle they should be about the same as far as efficiency, but it can be that heat pumps are typically constructed better or whatever.
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    > but in the consumer space heat pump typically implies that it can heat and cool. That's also true of air conditioners.
- Diederich 2y ago
  I think this author is effectively saying that the devices that are widely known as 'heat pumps' tend to be more efficient than devices that are widely known as 'air conditioners'.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    If so, that does not sound like a correct claim.
- stephen_g 2y ago
  Technically yes, refrigerators too. Around here (Australia) we call it 'reverse cycle' when air-conditioners can heat as well as cool, and probably over 90% of all air conditioners in homes have that functionality - it's just expected. But the term 'heat pump' seems to be used in a lot of places now to refer specifically to having the heating ability, even though cooling is doing the same thing (just in the opposite direction).
MostlyStable 2y ago
Became skeptical of the overall article at this line: >All the while, fiercer heat waves will require more energy-hungry air conditioning to keep people healthy. (Though ideally, everyone would get a heat pump instead.) Heat pumps and air conditioners are identical, with the sole difference being that the heat pump can _also_ function as a heater/furnace. Heat pumps are not more efficient than AC for cooling. If the concern is increasing heat waves and increasing need for cooling in the summer (as described), heat pumps provide no advantage. This is an extremely basic technical point. Combined with the overall tone of the article, this reads like a PR fluff piece about the company providing the vehicles. -edit in response to numerous comments- Yes, heat pumps are good (I have one in my home), and, as a repalcement for _total_ HVAC systems, can provide a pretty significant efficiency bump, and reduce emissions...but for the _specific_ case of increased cooling needs, they will not make _that problem_ more efficient or reduce emissions. In other words, the fact that heat waves are increasing and we need more cooling has zero impact on the efficiency ganes/carbon savings of heat pumps, which are entirely from replacing _heating_ systems. And if the writer had understood this point, then an extremely minor change to the sentence would have conveyed the point. Although honestly, it's so orthogonal to the overall thrust of the article that it would have been better omitted entirely, in my opinion.
- tantalor 2y ago
  Author might be forgiven, considering the quality of available information online: > Heat pumps offer an energy-efficient alternative to furnaces and air conditioners > Because they transfer heat rather than generate heat, heat pumps can efficiently provide comfortable temperatures https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/heat-pump-systems https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/heat-pump-systems > heat pumps tend to be more energy efficient than an AC https://bkvenergy.com/blog/heat-pump-vs-central-air/ https://bkvenergy.com/blog/heat-pump-vs-central-air/ Of course those sites don't cite a source. It's probably AI generated. Apparently this is a widespread confusion. My guess is they are comparing heat pump for both heating and cooling to conventional furnace/AC system, not just "for cooling" only.
  - CorrectHorseBat 2y ago
kelnos 2y ago
I like the idea of the buses providing power back to the grid when they're not being used in the late afternoon, but the article's author seems to think that even privately-owned passenger cars should be participating in this as well. I'm not sure how practical that would be, though. For school buses it's easy, because you know exactly the range of times during the day, every (week)day, when they're going to be out on the road. Late afternoon/evening use as a grid source is perfect, because they've already brought all the kids home, and won't be needed until the next morning, and there's plenty of time to charge them back up after they've sent energy to the grid. But for my own private vehicle, I don't use it on a schedule. Well, sure, there's some scheduled use, but there's also random unplanned use, or even just random planned use that might not conform to when the grid wants to pull from my battery. If I'm leaving at 6pm to start a 3-hour drive to visit out-of-area family for a few days, for example, I certainly don't want the grid pulling from it, say, from 3pm to 6pm. And on top of that is battery wear and tear. I would assume that, all else being equal, a car participating in a vehicle-to-grid program will need its batteries replaced sooner (maybe much sooner) than a car that isn't. And given how utilities seem to want to pay less and less for power that residential solar sends back to the grid, I can't imagine any paltry sum they pay for vehicle-to-grid use would offset the very real costs to the car's owner.
- rahimnathwani 2y ago
  > And given how utilities seem to want to pay less and less for power that residential solar sends back to the grid, I can't imagine any paltry sum they pay for vehicle-to-grid use would offset the very real costs to the car's owner. But maybe it would be different during peak usage hours (when solar is unavailable).
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  All those same concerns apply to the existing Tesla virtual power plant's (VPP) in California and Texas. People buy Tesla power-walls to have emergency power that would be useless if their battery has been emptied by the VPP. And those PowerWalls are more expensive per kWh than a car is. The solution for the first is a simple power limit, typically 50%. So the VPP never drains the battery below 50%, leaving a nice margin for emergencies. The solution for the second is pricing: the VPP typically pays 50 cents per kWh, in return for about 0.1 cents/kWh of wear and tear on the battery.
dheera 2y ago
[flagged]
- vsuperpower2021 2y ago
  Sorry, we can't improve school buses because Oakland is a shithole. Sorry, no space travel, Oakland is a shithole. No one is allowed to do anything good until Oakland looks like wakanda.
  - dheera 2y ago
    I mean, who in their right mind would raise kids in Oakland right now?
    - MBCook 2y ago
      People without the means to move away?
    - mulderc 2y ago
      Oakland is a large city and has many nice and safe neighborhoods in it.
      - AlbertCory 2y ago
        > many nice and safe neighborhoods I think you mean "safer than East International Blvd." I don't demand that you cite crime statistics by zip code, and compare the good ones to other cities. But that's what you'd need to do to be persuasive.
        mulderc 2y ago
        Most people understand that large cities have a variety of areas within them and the crime rate isn’t the same in the whole city. There are plenty of neighborhoods that have average to below average crime rates as compared to the rest of the US.
tempestn 2y ago
> All the while, fiercer heat waves will require more energy-hungry air conditioning to keep people healthy. (Though ideally, everyone would get a heat pump instead.) An air conditioner is a heat pump. I'm not sure the distinction they're trying to make here. What we normally call heat pumps can provide efficient heating as well, but that's not relevant in summer. Modern heat pumps can be more efficient than older ones, but so can modern air conditioners that don't have a heating cycle.
- wtallis 2y ago
  The "fiercer heat waves" seems to be referencing global warming. Using fossil fuels or resistive electric heating during the winter contributes more to that problem than using an efficient heat pump.
  - tempestn 2y ago
    This is true, but seems unrelated to the point I was making.
djfobbz 2y ago
Even though electric buses have lower energy costs at about $0.213 per mile, over 1,000,000 miles, an electric bus could cost up to $985,782, while a diesel bus may cost as little as $488,000 due to lower upfront costs and no need for $50,000 to $60,000 battery replacements every 175,000 miles. Additionally, the environmental toll of lithium mining for electric bus batteries, which contributes to soil degradation, water shortages, and toxic chemical pollution, makes the long-term sustainability of diesel buses more compelling.
- justahuman74 2y ago
  There's plenty of environment toil associated with producing and using diesel
- kccqzy 2y ago
  1. School districts do not drive their buses to 1 million miles. That's like 40–50 years of driving. Plenty of other components in a bus fail before then. 2. Electric vehicles do not need battery replacements other than manufacturing defects. They degrade for sure and hold less charge after time, but not to such a great extent that a school bus will be unable to complete its daily trip. 3. Lithium from old batteries can be recycled and remanufactured into new batteries. Battery recycle plants are already here in the U.S.
- limitedfrom 2y ago
  This is an unfair comparison. For some reason, you're willing to bring up environmental costs of electric buses in addition to the higher costs, but only mention the lower upfront costs for diesel buses. Diesel burning has an incredible high cost to the environment too, the main climate changing one we're grappling of course.
limitedfrom 2y ago
> “They have more energy in each bus than they need to do their route, so there’s always an ample amount left over,” said Rudi Halbright, product manager of V2G integration at Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the utility that’s partnered with Zum and Oakland Unified for the new system. This just sounds like the batteries are oversized for the application and they're carrying unnecessary weight around all day. Consumer EVs are doing this to an insane degree all day for "range anxiety", but I can't help but think that well defined space like school buses could be sized much closer to the true requirements.
- dgoldstein0 2y ago
  Not necessarily. The battery may be able to provide power to the grid when it's low and does not enough power to drive the bus. The bus probably requires some minimum voltage to move and a bit more to be able to climb hills. And of course you don't want to run out of power so more buffer for that. So it's not unimaginable a bus could be near empty for the purposes of driving the route but have useful juice to give the grid. Fair question would be how such discharging affects battery lifespan
- Gigachad 2y ago
  The buses will all have different length routes, you aren’t going to custom build a bus for a single route and then have it be impossible to reassign later. The batteries will also degrade over time so you wouldn’t want them left completely useless when they degrade 1% and can now no longer complete the route.
  - limitedfrom 2y ago
    To some extent, definitely. But I'd like to think that 1) School districts could buy a mixture of different ranged buses to fit their needs. After all, airlines have a mixture of planes in the fleet for different range / needs and not just have all the fleet be the largest / longest range model, and 2) The manufacturer offers range conversions later since it's a more commercial use than consumer EVs, especially when they want to sell it to different school districts. They probably need to do battery swaps when batteries degrade beyond a certain degree anyway. Carrying additional capacity takes a lot of material (that could be used for other batteries especially) and energy. I get that it's convenient, but I hope folks put a little care into it than just put large batteries everywhere.
hackernoops 2y ago
So if the e-bus catches fire all the children burn to death? Shouldn't battery fire handling techniques be improved first?
- redundantly 2y ago
  That's some good FUD right there. EV battery fires don't just spontaneously and instantly burst into an all encompassing flame that destroys, maims and kills everything near it. If it does catch on fire they will be able to evacuate. There are always at least two exits on the bus, and the windows can be used as well. Basically, it would very similar to a standard bus fire, with the exception that it takes longer and different tactics to put out an EV fire.
  - m463 2y ago
    On television, I've noticed that most gasoline cars seem to jump into the air, rotate mid-flight and explode in a fireball. I am waiting for electric cars to catch up in hollywood, exploding in a storm of sparks and lightning bolts.
- bastawhiz 2y ago
  In every school bus I've ridden on, two windows pop out as emergency exits, the rear door is an emergency exit, and there is at least one on the roof (in case the bus tips over). Buses are perhaps the easiest of all vehicles to evacuate in the event of an incident (except maybe motorcycles).
cainxinth 2y ago
As a road cyclist, this can’t roll out nationwide soon enough. Ancient diesel school buses are an environmental travesty for the kids… and for me riding behind them!

88 points by rntn 2y ago

dmoy 2y ago

> 1300 students So for a big city like Oakland... this is what, 5% or less of the student body? Most kids just take city buses or walk or drive or whatever, yea?

jerlam 2y ago
> Oakland Unified only provides bus services for its special-need students California has the lowest percentage of students taking the bus of all US states, thanks to Prop 13: https://www.kqed.org/news/11980715/11980715-revision-v1 https://www.kqed.org/news/11980715/11980715-revision-v1
- zdragnar 2y ago
  Reading the article, it's clear the reason is the state froze the budget in 1982 and left it that way for 40 years. As with everything else in California, they could have done something about it, and didn't.
  - kelnos 2y ago
    I'm sure the reason they froze the budget, though, is because they couldn't fund it further. Whether or not the lack of growth in funding is due to Prop 13 is not something I care to figure out or verify, but it sounds plausible.
    - zdragnar 2y ago
      > lack of growth in funding The article also states that the growth of the fund is legally limited to cost of living increases. Since this is a state wide law for a state defined budget, the solution is simple: repeal the law (which they did in 2022) and allocate funds to it from a different program, or with a new tax, such as a sales or income tax increase. This is how they do a lot of things. I seem to recall at one point a rep wanted to add a tax to blueberries so they could create a blueberry commission to advertise California blueberries in other states. I think they do this already for other crops like avocados, though I'm not sure if it ever actually became a thing. In any case, all of the legal levers have existed to fix the problem. They simply chose not to.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- jeffbee 2y ago
  OUSD contracts with the local bus agency, AC Transit, to run special lines for schools.
grecy 2y ago
> this is what, 5% or less of the student body? The goal is improvement, not perfection. We have to start somewhere, and this is a very good start.

throwaway742 2y ago

>All the while, fiercer heat waves will require more energy-hungry air conditioning to keep people healthy. (Though ideally, everyone would get a heat pump instead.) Isn't an AC already a heat pump?

maxerickson 2y ago
Yes, but in the consumer space heat pump typically implies that it can heat and cool. In principle they should be about the same as far as efficiency, but it can be that heat pumps are typically constructed better or whatever.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > but in the consumer space heat pump typically implies that it can heat and cool. That's also true of air conditioners.
Diederich 2y ago
I think this author is effectively saying that the devices that are widely known as 'heat pumps' tend to be more efficient than devices that are widely known as 'air conditioners'.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  If so, that does not sound like a correct claim.
stephen_g 2y ago
Technically yes, refrigerators too. Around here (Australia) we call it 'reverse cycle' when air-conditioners can heat as well as cool, and probably over 90% of all air conditioners in homes have that functionality - it's just expected. But the term 'heat pump' seems to be used in a lot of places now to refer specifically to having the heating ability, even though cooling is doing the same thing (just in the opposite direction).

MostlyStable 2y ago

Became skeptical of the overall article at this line: >All the while, fiercer heat waves will require more energy-hungry air conditioning to keep people healthy. (Though ideally, everyone would get a heat pump instead.) Heat pumps and air conditioners are identical, with the sole difference being that the heat pump can _also_ function as a heater/furnace. Heat pumps are not more efficient than AC for cooling. If the concern is increasing heat waves and increasing need for cooling in the summer (as described), heat pumps provide no advantage. This is an extremely basic technical point. Combined with the overall tone of the article, this reads like a PR fluff piece about the company providing the vehicles. -edit in response to numerous comments- Yes, heat pumps are good (I have one in my home), and, as a repalcement for _total_ HVAC systems, can provide a pretty significant efficiency bump, and reduce emissions...but for the _specific_ case of increased cooling needs, they will not make _that problem_ more efficient or reduce emissions. In other words, the fact that heat waves are increasing and we need more cooling has zero impact on the efficiency ganes/carbon savings of heat pumps, which are entirely from replacing _heating_ systems. And if the writer had understood this point, then an extremely minor change to the sentence would have conveyed the point. Although honestly, it's so orthogonal to the overall thrust of the article that it would have been better omitted entirely, in my opinion.

tantalor 2y ago
Author might be forgiven, considering the quality of available information online: > Heat pumps offer an energy-efficient alternative to furnaces and air conditioners > Because they transfer heat rather than generate heat, heat pumps can efficiently provide comfortable temperatures https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/heat-pump-systems https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/heat-pump-systems > heat pumps tend to be more energy efficient than an AC https://bkvenergy.com/blog/heat-pump-vs-central-air/ https://bkvenergy.com/blog/heat-pump-vs-central-air/ Of course those sites don't cite a source. It's probably AI generated. Apparently this is a widespread confusion. My guess is they are comparing heat pump for both heating and cooling to conventional furnace/AC system, not just "for cooling" only.
- CorrectHorseBat 2y ago

kelnos 2y ago

I like the idea of the buses providing power back to the grid when they're not being used in the late afternoon, but the article's author seems to think that even privately-owned passenger cars should be participating in this as well. I'm not sure how practical that would be, though. For school buses it's easy, because you know exactly the range of times during the day, every (week)day, when they're going to be out on the road. Late afternoon/evening use as a grid source is perfect, because they've already brought all the kids home, and won't be needed until the next morning, and there's plenty of time to charge them back up after they've sent energy to the grid. But for my own private vehicle, I don't use it on a schedule. Well, sure, there's some scheduled use, but there's also random unplanned use, or even just random planned use that might not conform to when the grid wants to pull from my battery. If I'm leaving at 6pm to start a 3-hour drive to visit out-of-area family for a few days, for example, I certainly don't want the grid pulling from it, say, from 3pm to 6pm. And on top of that is battery wear and tear. I would assume that, all else being equal, a car participating in a vehicle-to-grid program will need its batteries replaced sooner (maybe much sooner) than a car that isn't. And given how utilities seem to want to pay less and less for power that residential solar sends back to the grid, I can't imagine any paltry sum they pay for vehicle-to-grid use would offset the very real costs to the car's owner.

rahimnathwani 2y ago
> And given how utilities seem to want to pay less and less for power that residential solar sends back to the grid, I can't imagine any paltry sum they pay for vehicle-to-grid use would offset the very real costs to the car's owner. But maybe it would be different during peak usage hours (when solar is unavailable).
bryanlarsen 2y ago
All those same concerns apply to the existing Tesla virtual power plant's (VPP) in California and Texas. People buy Tesla power-walls to have emergency power that would be useless if their battery has been emptied by the VPP. And those PowerWalls are more expensive per kWh than a car is. The solution for the first is a simple power limit, typically 50%. So the VPP never drains the battery below 50%, leaving a nice margin for emergencies. The solution for the second is pricing: the VPP typically pays 50 cents per kWh, in return for about 0.1 cents/kWh of wear and tear on the battery.

dheera 2y ago

[flagged]

vsuperpower2021 2y ago
Sorry, we can't improve school buses because Oakland is a shithole. Sorry, no space travel, Oakland is a shithole. No one is allowed to do anything good until Oakland looks like wakanda.
- dheera 2y ago
  I mean, who in their right mind would raise kids in Oakland right now?
  - MBCook 2y ago
    People without the means to move away?
  - mulderc 2y ago
    Oakland is a large city and has many nice and safe neighborhoods in it.
    - AlbertCory 2y ago
      > many nice and safe neighborhoods I think you mean "safer than East International Blvd." I don't demand that you cite crime statistics by zip code, and compare the good ones to other cities. But that's what you'd need to do to be persuasive.
      - mulderc 2y ago
        Most people understand that large cities have a variety of areas within them and the crime rate isn’t the same in the whole city. There are plenty of neighborhoods that have average to below average crime rates as compared to the rest of the US.

tempestn 2y ago

> All the while, fiercer heat waves will require more energy-hungry air conditioning to keep people healthy. (Though ideally, everyone would get a heat pump instead.) An air conditioner is a heat pump. I'm not sure the distinction they're trying to make here. What we normally call heat pumps can provide efficient heating as well, but that's not relevant in summer. Modern heat pumps can be more efficient than older ones, but so can modern air conditioners that don't have a heating cycle.

wtallis 2y ago
The "fiercer heat waves" seems to be referencing global warming. Using fossil fuels or resistive electric heating during the winter contributes more to that problem than using an efficient heat pump.
- tempestn 2y ago
  This is true, but seems unrelated to the point I was making.

djfobbz 2y ago

Even though electric buses have lower energy costs at about $0.213 per mile, over 1,000,000 miles, an electric bus could cost up to $985,782, while a diesel bus may cost as little as $488,000 due to lower upfront costs and no need for $50,000 to $60,000 battery replacements every 175,000 miles. Additionally, the environmental toll of lithium mining for electric bus batteries, which contributes to soil degradation, water shortages, and toxic chemical pollution, makes the long-term sustainability of diesel buses more compelling.

justahuman74 2y ago
There's plenty of environment toil associated with producing and using diesel
kccqzy 2y ago
1. School districts do not drive their buses to 1 million miles. That's like 40–50 years of driving. Plenty of other components in a bus fail before then. 2. Electric vehicles do not need battery replacements other than manufacturing defects. They degrade for sure and hold less charge after time, but not to such a great extent that a school bus will be unable to complete its daily trip. 3. Lithium from old batteries can be recycled and remanufactured into new batteries. Battery recycle plants are already here in the U.S.
limitedfrom 2y ago
This is an unfair comparison. For some reason, you're willing to bring up environmental costs of electric buses in addition to the higher costs, but only mention the lower upfront costs for diesel buses. Diesel burning has an incredible high cost to the environment too, the main climate changing one we're grappling of course.

limitedfrom 2y ago

> “They have more energy in each bus than they need to do their route, so there’s always an ample amount left over,” said Rudi Halbright, product manager of V2G integration at Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the utility that’s partnered with Zum and Oakland Unified for the new system. This just sounds like the batteries are oversized for the application and they're carrying unnecessary weight around all day. Consumer EVs are doing this to an insane degree all day for "range anxiety", but I can't help but think that well defined space like school buses could be sized much closer to the true requirements.

dgoldstein0 2y ago
Not necessarily. The battery may be able to provide power to the grid when it's low and does not enough power to drive the bus. The bus probably requires some minimum voltage to move and a bit more to be able to climb hills. And of course you don't want to run out of power so more buffer for that. So it's not unimaginable a bus could be near empty for the purposes of driving the route but have useful juice to give the grid. Fair question would be how such discharging affects battery lifespan
Gigachad 2y ago
The buses will all have different length routes, you aren’t going to custom build a bus for a single route and then have it be impossible to reassign later. The batteries will also degrade over time so you wouldn’t want them left completely useless when they degrade 1% and can now no longer complete the route.
- limitedfrom 2y ago
  To some extent, definitely. But I'd like to think that 1) School districts could buy a mixture of different ranged buses to fit their needs. After all, airlines have a mixture of planes in the fleet for different range / needs and not just have all the fleet be the largest / longest range model, and 2) The manufacturer offers range conversions later since it's a more commercial use than consumer EVs, especially when they want to sell it to different school districts. They probably need to do battery swaps when batteries degrade beyond a certain degree anyway. Carrying additional capacity takes a lot of material (that could be used for other batteries especially) and energy. I get that it's convenient, but I hope folks put a little care into it than just put large batteries everywhere.

hackernoops 2y ago

So if the e-bus catches fire all the children burn to death? Shouldn't battery fire handling techniques be improved first?

redundantly 2y ago
That's some good FUD right there. EV battery fires don't just spontaneously and instantly burst into an all encompassing flame that destroys, maims and kills everything near it. If it does catch on fire they will be able to evacuate. There are always at least two exits on the bus, and the windows can be used as well. Basically, it would very similar to a standard bus fire, with the exception that it takes longer and different tactics to put out an EV fire.
- m463 2y ago
  On television, I've noticed that most gasoline cars seem to jump into the air, rotate mid-flight and explode in a fireball. I am waiting for electric cars to catch up in hollywood, exploding in a storm of sparks and lightning bolts.
bastawhiz 2y ago
In every school bus I've ridden on, two windows pop out as emergency exits, the rear door is an emergency exit, and there is at least one on the roof (in case the bus tips over). Buses are perhaps the easiest of all vehicles to evacuate in the event of an incident (except maybe motorcycles).

cainxinth 2y ago

As a road cyclist, this can’t roll out nationwide soon enough. Ancient diesel school buses are an environmental travesty for the kids… and for me riding behind them!