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US schools can subscribe to an electric bus fleet at lower prices than diesel

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Re: US schools can subscribe to an electric bus fleet at lower prices than diesel

#81

Post by speedgoose »

jws wrote: post #68
speedgoose wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is 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.

The 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…

It’s a nice way to say that kids can slam the seats.

Re: US schools can subscribe to an electric bus fleet at lower prices than diesel

#83

Post by kube-system »

jtlienwis wrote: post #64
bsder wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that a school bus tends to operate a diesel in its worst conditions. Lots of idling. Lots of low RPM operation. Lots of stop and start wasting a lot of energy into the brakes. A school bus is practically engineered to be an EV propaganda piece.

How much will they weigh compared to a Diesel bus? Road damage is to the fourth power of axle weight. Any cost savings may be just shifted to the road department for fixing pot holes. I think the VW EV is almost twice the weight of a same size ICE car. 16x the road damage. Plus, how much damage when this EV bus slides on the ice and hits something? Twice the damage if twice the weight.

School bus weight is generally seen as a good thing, because we care more about keeping kids safe than road damage or damage to other vehicles.

Re: US schools can subscribe to an electric bus fleet at lower prices than diesel

#84

Post by coryrc »

sremani wrote: post #52
elihu wrote: post #30

Apparently 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 r…

I do not know if we are in a commodity super-cycle but Li price is brrrrrrr. https://www.dailymetalprice.com/metalpricecharts.php?c=li&u=... The days of falling battery prices in dollar terms are over.

Lithium is a tiny fraction of battery cost.

Re: US schools can subscribe to an electric bus fleet at lower prices than diesel

#85

Post by gbear605 »

jtlienwis wrote: post #64
bsder wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that a school bus tends to operate a diesel in its worst conditions. Lots of idling. Lots of low RPM operation. Lots of stop and start wasting a lot of energy into the brakes. A school bus is practically engineered to be an EV propaganda piece.

How much will they weigh compared to a Diesel bus? Road damage is to the fourth power of axle weight. Any cost savings may be just shifted to the road department for fixing pot holes. I think the VW EV is almost twice the weight of a same size ICE car. 16x the road damage. Plus, how much damage when this EV bus slides on the ice and hits something? Twice the damage if twice the weight.

The battery doesn’t necessarily need to be that large, since the range can be small (<25 miles for most school districts assuming that they can charge during the day). Probably a school bus could get away with an battery the same size as one in a Tesla, so the weight of the rest of the bus probably dominates. Probably the weight of the students alone is a lot more when fully loaded.

Re: US schools can subscribe to an electric bus fleet at lower prices than diesel

#86

Post by aurizon »

A 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?

Re: US schools can subscribe to an electric bus fleet at lower prices than diesel

#87

Post by coryrc »

bell-cot wrote: post #2

Hmm...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,…

> 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.

Re: US schools can subscribe to an electric bus fleet at lower prices than diesel

#88

Post by bsder »

jtlienwis wrote: post #64
bsder wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that a school bus tends to operate a diesel in its worst conditions. Lots of idling. Lots of low RPM operation. Lots of stop and start wasting a lot of energy into the brakes. A school bus is practically engineered to be an EV propaganda piece.

How much will they weigh compared to a Diesel bus? Road damage is to the fourth power of axle weight. Any cost savings may be just shifted to the road department for fixing pot holes. I think the VW EV is almost twice the weight of a same size ICE car. 16x the road damage. Plus, how much damage when this EV bus slides on the ice and hits something? Twice the damage if twice the weight.

It seems that these are the same weight. That's probably not a coincidence.

This lists the GVWR for the diesels at up to 36,200 lbs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Bird_All_American

This lists the GVWR for electrics at the same: https://assets.ctfassets.net/ucu418cgcnau/362sQcGinJzFxVqFh0...

Electrics also tend to benefit from better traction in crummy conditions because the batteries create a fixed, lower center of gravity.

Do note that the drive system for these EV buses is apparently built by Cummins. For Cummins to put the effort in, they see a reason.

Re: US schools can subscribe to an electric bus fleet at lower prices than diesel

#89

Post by nickysielicki »

sanp wrote: post #14

I 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…

In what world is the maintenance cost for a fleet of EV busses going to be less than that of a diesel? There are two orders of magnitude more diesel mechanics than people qualified to work on EV drivetrains.

Re: US schools can subscribe to an electric bus fleet at lower prices than diesel

#90

Post by danans »

stonogo wrote: post #80
danans wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'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 j…

My 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...

> 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...

Since I charge at home, this is only a pain point on road trips (though diminishing with the growing number of high power chargers along highways). However, I understand how it's a pain for apartment dwellers who don't have their own charging stations.

So we need better street-side public charging infrastructure for them - but also for single-family-home dwellers with a second car that doesn't fit in the driveway. Living in a single-family-home shouldn't be a precondition for driving an EV.

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