EV school bus

[y_p_w]

I’m surprised no one asked why they do this? Is it really saving money for the district taxpayers versus running the busses two or three years as a example before swapping for new ones?

The idea of a test fleet of EV busses is a prudent one. What happened with municipalities that bought Proterra buses comes to mind.

I think the comment was that they're buying additional buses every year, but not the entire fleet having turnover every year.

The issue of Proterra batteries (and buses) will be interesting. The company only filed for Chapter 11, so I'd think that existing users have a strong incentive to keep their support.

 

[Astro14]

I’m surprised no one asked why they do this? Is it really saving money for the district taxpayers versus running the busses two or three years as a example before swapping for new ones?

The idea of a test fleet of EV busses is a prudent one. What happened with municipalities that bought Proterra buses comes to mind.

Even if busses had a 20 year life, we would be buying 30 a year. Simple math. Not about agenda at all. With a fleet of six hundred, you’re going to need new ones every year.

 

[PimTac]

I think the comment was that they're buying additional buses every year, but not the entire fleet having turnover every year.

The issue of Proterra batteries (and buses) will be interesting. The company only filed for Chapter 11, so I'd think that existing users have a strong incentive to keep their support.

Maybe I misunderstood the comment. 630 busses every year is a ton of busses.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Even if busses had a 20 year life, we would be buying 30 a year. Simple math. Not about agenda at all. With a fleet of six hundred, you’re going to need new ones every year.

Yeah, and plus what would all the hippies paint flowers on and drive from CA to Woodstock?

 

[Trav]

First stop is at your house for some of that free electricity. LOL

 

[MSCH]

I've helped chop up a school bus body. It's not well built at all ...

Blue Bird are more solid than Thomas... then again the name of the company is the Blue Bird Bus Body corporation... have almost as many rivets in a Bluebird as they do in an old DC3.

 

[y_p_w]

I wonder sometimes about how this is going to work long run. Obviously school buses have that limited, defined role. However, I've never ridden a school bus for any kind of daily transportation to school and my child has never done so. That's fairly rare in our district other than for special needs students who might need to go to a specialty program. I did find one neighborhood school that's using a temporary campus (a decommissioned middle school grounds with temporary buildings) that the district still owns and has partially leased out to a private school. For that they're providing school buses to students requesting it since it's several miles away.

I went to a Catholic elementary school for several years, and our only use of school buses was for field trips. The same was the case for most field trips in junior high and high school. I've also ridden school buses for remote parking. I took my family to the Berkeley Kite Festival once, where parking was at the Golden Gate Fields racetrack and it was all school buses. But for that the drivers were probably making extra money and the private school bus operators were free to use their fleets. It might make for an interesting use case for an electric school bus. That was just a couple of miles so maybe 30 round trips a day was doable, but then they would need to be able to recharge. However, it's probably a similar issue with diesel buses where they might have to find a fleet refueling station (life a CFN affiliate).

 

[MSCH]

Even if busses had a 20 year life, we would be buying 30 a year. Simple math. Not about agenda at all. With a fleet of six hundred, you’re going to need new ones every year.

yep... give you an idea how a transit system is supposed to do it in the USA. Transit bus has a projected 12 year 500,000 mile service life.
School systems are similar but different...

intelligent transit agency will replace 8.5% of their fleet every year, constantly retiring and putting into service new vehicles so there is an even number of aged vehicles across the fleet..

not so intelligent transit agency will purchase a large group of buses all at once.. to replace a bunch of worn out crap..
in ten or twelve years they will face the cost and task of replacing another large group of vehicles at the same time.

when a organizations replace a large percentage of their fleet all at once,
the maintenance and repairs tend to comes in peaks and valleys instead of being spread out...
and later in vehicle life the engines and transmissions all tend to crap out at the same time.

 

[y_p_w]

Blue Bird are more solid than Thomas... then again the name of the company is the Blue Bird Bus Body corporation... have almost as many rivets in a Bluebird as they do in an old DC3.

I wonder if Gillig wants back in the school bus market. The Phantom school bus was mostly just a transit bus in school bus colors with school bus seats.

 

[MSCH]

I wonder if Gillig wants back in the school bus market. The Phantom school bus was mostly just a transit bus in school bus colors with school bus seats.

I don't know... two different companies trying to offer something they aren't designed for... sort of like BlueBird tries to offer transit buses but they are mostly school buses pretending to be urban combat vehicles.

 

[JeffKeryk]

First stop is at your house for some of that free electricity. LOL

You are welcome here anytime. I might need your help fixing the Corolla P0741 trouble code on my grand niece's car.
Plenty of electricity, if needed. Lotta sun here, so solar is a no brainer. Plus, you might like my Oldsey... Made right up the road in Fremont, same as my Toyletta 4WD PU and Tesla Model 3. I have the build sheet.

 

[y_p_w]

I don't know... two different companies trying to offer something they aren't designed for... sort of like BlueBird tries to offer transit buses but they are mostly school buses pretending to be urban combat vehicles.

Gillig has a long history making school buses. Their school buses included traditional looking buses, but they were also big on cab forward designs.

 

[MSCH]

Gillig has a long history making school buses. Their school buses included traditional looking buses, but they were also big on cab forward designs.

I don't know. we had some Gilligs, but we had a bunch of every other brand too. I just never associated them with School Buses... then again maybe Gillig being a California brand their market penetration is much higher on the west coast.

 

[y_p_w]

I don't know. we had some Gilligs, but we had a bunch of every other brand too. I just never associated them with School Buses... then again maybe Gillig being a California brand their market penetration is much higher on the west coast.

The big thing in California is lots of hills.

We had a very interesting issue with transit buses here. Gillig used to be headquartered in Hayward, California and the factory was right on several AC Transit bus routes. They had sold to them several times but over the years they bought New Flyer and then Van Hool buses. There were reports about the AC Transit director making trips to Europe to talk to the potential supplier along with allegations that he was wined and dined, along with a believe that some they did things better in Europe. Eventually he was gone and more recently Gillg got a contract. And those buses have a prominent "LOCALLY BUILT" sign, although I suppose it's a bit different now that Gillig moved to Livermore where their new factory is much bigger.

 

[OVERKILL]

The district just finished adding a huge solar project so that should help with charging costs. We are mountainous but not high enough in elevation to get snow.

The Mammoth Solar project, that's 13,000 acres? It's an interesting project, because it's directly using farm land, land that was producing crops in 2021, whereas the common argument is that solar gets placed in locations that aren't farm land.

The project is 1,650MW, which is very large for solar install. Indiana appears to have an average CF of ~18.1%, definitely better than the 16.4% we get here in Ontario, but a far cry from what Cali, Texas and Arizona gets. So, the 1,650MW project will generate ~7,168MWh/day.

Do you happen to know the size of the batteries in the busses and what the expected charge profile looks like? That would allow you to determine how much of the charging would be offset by the solar farm.

 

[MSCH]

The big thing in California is lots of hills.

We had a very interesting issue with transit buses here. Gillig used to be headquartered in Hayward, California and the factory was right on several AC Transit bus routes. They had sold to them several times but over the years they bought New Flyer and then Van Hool buses. There were reports about the AC Transit director making trips to Europe to talk to the potential supplier along with allegations that he was wined and dined, along with a believe that some they did things better in Europe. Eventually he was gone and more recently Gillg got a contract. And those buses have a prominent "LOCALLY BUILT" sign, although I suppose it's a bit different now that Gillig moved to Livermore where their new factory is much bigger.

we had approximately 700 running vehicles in our fleet.. lets put it this way, even though most of this type of thing is governed by closed sealed bids, I think anybody who has observed the practice in action knows the possibility of corruption in the buying process is always there. Also worth saying a skilled prospective buyer can spec a vehicle that only one company can provide.

New Flyers are pretty good buses.In fact of all the later brands of equipment I dealt with I liked them the most, better than Gillig or NABI. technically they are a Canadian company but they manufacture in Minnesota at St Cloud and Crookston to satisfy the Buy American rules. Van Hool is hi end, know nothing about them.

Hills require gearing and a higher powered engine.. and generally some type of exhaust brake or retarder or both. I am not aware of us ever having bought any bus in the last 30 years that didn't have a retarder, simply because it saves on brakes.
We don't have any hills.. its South Florida.

Fact of the matter nowadays seems to be you are buying a bus with a Cummins in either Diesel or CNG, possibly mated to a Hybrid drive or a regular auto trans.. California being so green, they probably lean CNG and would want to go electric if feasible.. my employer was going CNG at the time point where I retired, of course the dummies in charge didn't realize it when they started the contract that only 2 out of the 3 bus barns were close enough to a natural gas pipeline in order to be feasible to install the fueling apparatus and connect to the pipeline.

 

[y_p_w]

we had approximately 700 running vehicles in our fleet.. lets put it this way, even though most of this type of thing is governed by closed sealed bids, I think anybody who has observed the practice in action knows the possibility of corruption in the buying process is always there. Also worth saying a skilled prospective buyer can spec a vehicle that only one company can provide.

New Flyers are pretty good buses.In fact of all the later brands of equipment I dealt with I liked them the most, better than Gillig or NABI. technically they are a Canadian company but they manufacture in Minnesota at St Cloud and Crookston to satisfy the Buy American rules. Van Hool is hi end, know nothing about them.

Hills require gearing and a higher powered engine.. and generally some type of exhaust brake or retarder or both. I am not aware of us ever having bought any bus in the last 30 years that didn't have a retarder, simply because it saves on brakes.
We don't have any hills.. its South Florida.

Fact of the matter nowadays seems to be you are buying a bus with a Cummins in either Diesel or CNG, possibly mated to a Hybrid drive or a regular auto trans.. California being so green, they probably lean CNG and would want to go electric if feasible.. my employer was going CNG at the time point where I retired, of course the dummies in charge didn't realize it when they started the contract that only 2 out of the 3 bus barns were close enough to a natural gas pipeline in order to be feasible to install the fueling apparatus and connect to the pipeline.

We still have some hydrogen fuel cell buses. I used to ride BART where I could see the AC Transit yard in Oakland, and they had a flashy looking hydrogen filling station.

But I was wrong about the sign. It's "BUILT LOCALLY".

 

[MSCH]

We still have some hydrogen fuel cell buses. I used to ride BART where I could see the AC Transit yard in Oakland, and they had a flashy looking hydrogen filling station.

But I was wrong about the sign. It's "BUILT LOCALLY".

the day I retired one of my co workers insisted I get my photo taken with the latest greatest going to save the planet CNG ( dont remember if they are Gillig or NABI) we were purchasing... I think we bought 300.

 

[Trav]

You are welcome here anytime. I might need your help fixing the Corolla P0741 trouble code on my grand niece's car.
Plenty of electricity, if needed. Lotta sun here, so solar is a no brainer. Plus, you might like my Oldsey... Made right up the road in Fremont, same as my Toyletta 4WD PU and Tesla Model 3. I have the build sheet.
View attachment 183733

Very cool car! If I had your electricity deal I would consider leasing an EV but no way is that happening here. With "taxes and fees" it drives my .37c kWh rate over .40c with no cheap night rate and no buy back from solar which cost 50K+.
Now I only drive about 4K a year and have too many cars that are mostly just toys, I drove the VW Beetle diesel to Boston today a 100 mile round trip on approx 2 gal of diesel or about $8, I can live with that, I love the diesel engines.

 

[Opelman]

I wonder if Gillig wants back in the school bus market. The Phantom school bus was mostly just a transit bus in school bus colors with school bus seats.

I hope not. We had 5 Phantoms. Lousy rustbuckets.