At least the paint the roofs white now!
EV school bus
- Thread starter Finklejag
- Start date
Just picture all the buses that run all day long, hooking up to the CA electric grid at night sucking the power out of the grid in a state that is already short on capacity and relies on fossil fuel to generate the vast majority of the electricity that will be charging the buses. *LOL* Then throw in all the other vehicles that will be charging as all new vehicles will also have to be EV too.
NOT happening but the public cant see they are being played.
NOT happening but the public cant see they are being played.
School Bus would be a pretty good application for an EV.
Vehicle itself runs about 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the afternoon.. almost no use on weekends or summer or holidays
basically 190 days a year, 8 hours each day.
they would need a charging station in each parking spot.
it could be done..
problem is getting the taxpayers to pay for it..
they dont want to pay teachers enough
so who thinks anybody wants to pay the upfront cost of switching over to EV's?
Vehicle itself runs about 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the afternoon.. almost no use on weekends or summer or holidays
basically 190 days a year, 8 hours each day.
they would need a charging station in each parking spot.
it could be done..
problem is getting the taxpayers to pay for it..
they dont want to pay teachers enough
so who thinks anybody wants to pay the upfront cost of switching over to EV's?
The warranty is useless on Thomas as the company that did the electrification is bankrupt. Proterra. I got to check out a Thomas Jouley, very poorly done. Lots of future problems.
With. sometimes, a few roof vents thrown in for good measure.
The CA school district I retired from recently has gotten on the electric bandwagon. Blue Bird Cummins junk. They have had nothing but problems. Garbage build quality, the 12v batteries going dead over a weekend even if the unit is plugged in and charging the traction batteries. Chargers failing. Just a myriad of issues preventing the bus from operating.The bus dealer techs not having the ability and knowledge to perform diagnostics on the vehicle. They have been nothing but problems for my former coworkers. These turds have been out of service far more than in. On paper they sound great but in reality it is a huge money waster for the taxpayers. Give me a Crown Coach with a mechanical diesel anyway. We had one that came into the fleet 13 years used and in the 20 YEARS we ran the thing after that it never came back on the hook. It just did its job day in, day out.
Proterra went Chapter 11. If they manage to survive they might still be able to provide replacements.
In any case, it would depend on who provides the warranty and the arrangements made. Lawyers will eventually sort this out.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Did yours have a Webasto? My buddy just inherited a pile of EV buses at his operation and they run Webasto units for heating.
No aux heaters at our district. Southern CA. The promise was that that the climate control could be programmed to come on at a preset time and heat or cool using the charging current so the bus would be comfortable and once underway use less battery power to maintain climate.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Apparently, the cold up here destroys the range, so they fitted them with the Webasto units.
As long as a bus doesn’t tip over they are nearly indestructible, anything that hits them is obliterated
Before I retired I got to test drive a Ford/ Collins van electric conversion. Another shoddy workmanship job and used a nickel sodium chloride battery. The battery had to be kept hot to keep the sodium in a liquid state. Talk about seriously self discharging. Yes it used battery power to keep itself heated. I did like the Lion brand bus that we got to test drive but the lever and cable operated parking brake operating on a single drum on the diff pinion was sketchy at best and a workman's comp shoulder injury case in the making. Should be pretty simple for them to engineer an air or electric parking brake.
Makes sense
It's not particularly cold here, and it isn't particularly warm at the moment... But I use around 0.6 kWh/km without heater or AC on, and around 1.1-1.2 when I need either. VDL Citea electric bus.
They fitted Webasto heaters aswell now.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
So fossil free is not in fact the case with these, lol.
It never was, as the electricity we all use isn't either. But it keeps emissions inside the city low, and reduces noise pollution.
They have a very low range, I estimate only a 50 kWh battery so we charge after every round trip (takes 10-15 minutes).
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Do the Webasto units have like a catalyst on them or anything to clean-up the exhaust?
I haven't seen them run, but I expect they are identical to the ones the regular and hybrid busses use: 30 or 35kW heaters without any exhaust gas treatment. It wasn't cold enough last week to need the heaters, and not hgot enough fo me to run the AC a lot either, once cooled down I switched everything off and just used open windows and speed: it's quieter too!
These busses are only used on 1 line as they need the charging after every round trip. So I don't drive them very often. We also use other busses on that line aswell, it was more of a concept test when they bought them. They have for now settled on hybrids with bigger batteries (I suspect 150kW) and geofencing so we run diesel outside towns, electric inside
I really hate it when politics leads to winning bids and then problem with product quality. This is how a good and supposedly simple technology got its bad name.
Like, keeping 12V last longer than a weekend when there is a whole traction battery there to charge it.
Like, keeping 12V last longer than a weekend when there is a whole traction battery there to charge it.
Last edited:
