You must include climate and weather into your bus consideration. What works in Portland OR is not going to work in Phoenix AZ or Fairbank AK. Why would you use an EV bus in a diesel generator grid in the arctic circle? If diesel PM pollution is a concern you should use a gasoline hybrid with NiMh battery.
Or, those batteries could be a lease with warranty. I'm sure some investors on Wall Street would love the idea of such investment like they did with a government bond.
probably so, but as a taxpayer, i would not.
You already did. Look at your property tax bill and how many bond measures you were paying. I'm sure school bus, the diesel ones, is somewhere within those.
This is the issue, it comes down to cost, especially for many smaller municipalities. I think one day EV school busses will be a thing, but right now the cost to purchase the busses along with the infrastructure to support them is a cost these towns/cities can't justify. The University I work at generates most of its own power, and they still couldn't justify doing it for ~50 EV facilities trucks because of the cost associated with redoing the infrastructure.
Yes i'm paying, but i dont' want to pay 4-5 times the cost.
From what I remember from Mercedes Streeters articles on Jalopnik the black line is actually the seat height in case of an accident.
First off, there is no school bus mandate in California if I remember right. Most of the K12 students don't get to ride school bus and in my district, only those in "safety area" gets to ride in addition to the special need children. What is a safety area? If you have to cross railroad track or a highway / express way, not a 4 lane regular blvd with traffic light.
One thing about EV school buses is that they are used for short range (at least in urban schools), and they are parked most of the time, so they can be charged for 8 hours every 20 miles of range. Urban buses have a lot of stop and go and they don't need a lot of range, but they do need a lot of torque. If anything diesel hybrid is the best power train for buses (not CNG, Muni has to warn the politicians that CNG can't climb a lot of the hills in San Francisco so don't just go get a ballot for the sake of it).
It’s a very good point that school buses put relatively few miles on each year where as a commercial or transit bus puts a huge number of miles on. And as alluded in other posts, the buses are paid for from the strained budgets of the school boards. On the other hand, so far Tesla S batteries are now 8 years old and for the most part are still good, so the verdict is still out on that one. I’m thinking the economics won’t work with local school boards unless the Feds or State pay for with your other tax dollars or more likely just add it to the deficit . Five billion dollars in California’s case shown in posting #35. I’m sure the school boards could find a better use for the money. Apparently there are 25,000 school buses in California.
you say batteries.. but its thousands of cells.. lets so how that goes on a bus route in Arizona
