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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

#181

Post by mjevans »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #168
dont__panic wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how they perform in cold conditions. Where I grew up, a solid 50% of the school year was at or below freezing regularly. We really worked those bus heaters -- you know the type, under a few seats scattered around the bus. Curiously, it doesn't seem that buses use heat from the engine, like most ICE vehicles, for heat. Instead, I'm pretty sure they were just using power from the motor for electric heating…

Wonder if radiant floor heating would be a good solution. Adding a warm air blower near the front to counteract cold air intrusion from opening and closing the door could help keep the interior of the bus a nice constant temperature.

Single pane (if thick) windows, very loosely sealing; in recent years possibly open for fresh air even in cold months.

I grew up in a semi-temperate region that only had at most maybe a month of really cold temperatures each year. Those under-seat heaters were still very nice to be near and also helped to melt the snow and slush into just ice on the floor.

You should assume, from a heating and ventilation perspective, that the inside of a school bus is a mobile open air tent, but simultaneously also on the verge of being an enclosed space packed to the gills with people.

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

#182

Post by graycat »

Yes, without any really careful data, I've guessed that electric could be cheaper. But already??? Really???? Or are we talking some subsidies???

So, in the OP, now I see:

"A 2020 study conducted by Atlas Public Policy for Washington state indicated that falling battery costs and rising manufacturing volumes should bring electric school buses within total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) parity with fossil-fueled buses by 2030."

Hmm ... 2030???

Then I notice:

"While most of its projects have started small, CEO Duncan McIntyre sees the Montgomery County project — now at 25 electric buses and set to expand to 326 over the next four years — as the model for the future."

So, from

100 * 25 / 326 = 7.669%

we're talking so far a little less than 8% of the fleet. So full EV (electric vehicle) has a way to go.

Now I'm wondering ....

Now I notice near the beginning:

"Billions of dollars of federal and state grants and incentives are flowing to U.S. school districts to help them electrify their fleets."

"Billions"? Now I understand!

Same as usual: (1) Always look for the hidden agenda. (2) Follow the money.

Next, the bus fleet is in Montgomery County, Maryland. I used to live there. Relatively wealthy place! Lot of money! Lot of interest in social issues! Close to DC, the main money pot!

Next, what's this with a fleet of 326 busses??? What the ...??? So many busses? Are they in the school business or the bus business? Sounds like could run quite a good school system just for the costs of 326 busses. In my school, grades 1-12, there were no busses. 97+% of the kids went on to college -- not a bad school system. The year before me, three guys went to Princeton and two of them ran against some third guy for President of the Freshman Class. In my year, MIT came recruiting. The guy who did go to MIT -- I beat him by a little on the Math SAT. Must have been an OK school. Kids got to and from school on their own, rain, shine, hot, cold, ice, snow, or clear. One good way was to WALK. Another was a bicycle. But, no school busses.

Want to save money on 326 Diesel busses? Good. Here's a way, and get to save on not just 8% of the fleet but all of it, and get the savings tomorrow and don't have to wait until 2030. Uh, and save $billions. How to do this magic, more amazing than anything electrical??? Easy: Junk all the busses. Done.

Lesson: No matter how productive the US economy might be from automation or whatever, various interest groups can get with government and waste the gains. E.g., there in Monkey County, a lot of the people were, likely are, living in apartments they RENT. They'd be MUCH better off OWNING a single family detached house.

Next, I just got a direct message from Darwin: The birth rate in Monkey County is less than 2 per woman. Sooooo, the population is shrinking. The people of Monkey County who want busses instead of schooling are going -- I have the word right here -- extinct. If the government were wasting less, there could be more motherhood, and the moms could work out how to get the kids to/from school without 326 busses.

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

#183

Post by elihu »

mardifoufs wrote: post #118
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…

LiFePo batteries are already getting produced in huge numbers in China and are very cheap even here in the west. Could the Chinese LiFePo products legally be imported if they were using patented tech? Or is it a specific variation of LiFePo that is patented, and could make the batteries better? Because at 150-250$/kWh retail price it's going to be extremely hard for local manufacturers to compete in the market agains…

I'm not 100% sure what the situation is, but I think the issue is that if some car manufacturer tried to import a large quantity of LFP cells from China they might be sued if they don't pay the patent licensing fees. Thus the price of LFP cells in China isn't the same as the price of LFP cells anywhere else purchased through legitimate channels. (I'm not sure if the cheap-ish cells you can get on AliExpress are paying those royalties or if they're kind of flying under the radar.)

I'm hoping to see sub-$100 per kwh LFP cells sometime soon in the U.S. through some channel that ordinary people can order from. It would be a huge boon for EV conversion if the batteries weren't hugely expensive. I think that's probably attainable. LFP batteries aren't fundamentally expensive, you just need to have good automation, cheap energy, and economies of scale. The input materials are relatively cheap. China's main advantage besides the patent thing is that they've been quietly building their battery manufacturing capabilities and supply chains for a couple decades, and it's hard to compete with that.

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

#184

Post by elihu »

dont__panic wrote: post #121
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'm curious how they perform in cold conditions. Where I grew up, a solid 50% of the school year was at or below freezing regularly. We really worked those bus heaters -- you know the type, under a few seats scattered around the bus. Curiously, it doesn't seem that buses use heat from the engine, like most ICE vehicles, for heat. Instead, I'm pretty sure they were just using power from the motor for electric heating…

LFP batteries don't handle below-freezing temperatures very well, but that could be mitigated by using insulation and water cooling/heating depending on the time of year. Also maybe hooking them up to a pre-heater system that gets the batteries up to temperature before their route begins. (Sort of like those oil pan heaters they use in really cold climates.)

Cabin heating could be done with a heat pump for more efficiency, I suppose. Heating could consume quite a bit of power, but I suppose compared to the energy required to move a school bus around it's probably fairly minor.

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

#185

Post by WWLink »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #169
fiftyfifty wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in terms of primary cost, diesel buses are expensive to maintain. My FIL was a mechanic for the local school district for 15 years, so I got a little insight into that aspect of the district. Our medium sized school district, 4 big high schools and all the feeder schools for them, employs around 6 full time mechanics plus their manager with all the equipment and the facility to work on the buses year round plus…

> diesel buses breakdown regularly In comparison to what? Diesel engines in commercial vehicles are extremely reliable. It certainly could be possible for an electric bus to be more reliable, they certainly have less points of mechanical wear. However, there are a lot of power electronics going into charging their batteries and delivering the battery power to the motors.

The diesel engines in the Thomas busses my school district had in the 90s would like to have a word with you. Those fuckers were always breaking down. lol.

Plus they smelled like death and produced gross amounts of black smoke.

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

#186

Post by elihu »

sremani wrote: post #122
coryrc wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lithium is a tiny fraction of battery cost.

Materials are 60% cost of Li battery and across the board material costs are increasing. So, I stick to my assessment barring new evidence (which was not provided by your post), that Li battery prices falling in dollar terms is done. Reference: https://qnovo.com/82-the-cost-components-of-a-battery/

LFP doesn't use nickel or cobalt, which are usually the most expensive materials. Lithium prices will probably go up, but I don't think they're hugely significant yet. LFP cells also use plastic, iron, fertilizer (phosphate), and typically copper and aluminum. I think there's some graphite too.

Maybe there'll be some equilibrium price as manufacturing costs drop and material prices go up. It would be surprising though if LFP prices didn't keep dropping. (Especially retail prices, which seem to be around $300/kwh in the U.S.)

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

#187

Post by freeflight »

MathCodeLove wrote: post #171
freeflight wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube has plenty of videos showing the insides of school buses during crashes, anything that ain't a frontal crash has kids sliding and flying all over the place. They slide sideways out of the seats trough any serious horizontal forces, in the case of a rollover their heads will violently hit the roof as they literally take off from the seats [0], and then fall on the people on the ground side. [0] https://youtu.b…

YouTube also has plenty of videos of plane crashes, that doesn't mean that passenger aircraft are inherently unsafe, but that there are always risks associated with transportation and given extraordinary enough circumstances those risks will be revealed.

The point here is not "school buses are inherently unsafe", the point is that they seem to lack a basic safety feature that's otherwise common, even in passenger aircraft, that of seatbelts.

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

#188

Post by lucastheisen »

mike_d wrote: post #163
me_me_mu_mu wrote: post #95

When I was a kid like 15 years ago we'd walk to school if it was close. I took the bus until middle school which was like 1 mile away. I hope car usage goes down, especially a single person driving a big SUV. Walk, or bike, to where you need to go. Less cars, more safe.

I'm glad your parents were in an economic situation where you could live walking distance from school in a neighborhood safe enough to do so. Only 9% of students in the US live within a reasonable walking distance.

what is a reasonable walking distance? 9% seems like a surprisingly small number.

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

#189

Post by derriz »

bsdetector wrote: post #179
kemiller wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineering Explained did the math: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RhtiPefVzM Spoiler: Well-to-wheels, BEV cars are better than the best gas cars (top end prius) even if the source electricity is 100% coal. The best is still not driving, but it's a step in the right direction.

This video is actually a great example of how smart people can fool themselves. The sources he uses for breakeven time (DOE) assumes 24.3 mpg [1] for the average regular car, but people don't drive average cars they drive specific cars. If you take the DOE assumptions and approach this from the other end, CO2 pollution by mpg, then you find an ICE car getting approx 30 mpg or more is less polluting per mile driven th…

How is doing a calculation based on assuming electricity sourced 100% from coal or NG help develop an informed decision? US electricity is roughly 40% carbon free, 40% natural gas and 20% coal - wouldn’t it be more honest to use this mix in your calculation? And that’s ignoring particulates and NOx.

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

#190

Post by luke2m »

asdff wrote: post #144
MengerSponge wrote: post #77

The secondary costs of running a diesel fleet are also huge! Diesel motors generate a substantial amount of fine particulate that is unhealthy for anybody, and particularly unhealthy for children. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC121970/ Even if an electric fleet is the same cost, changing over would save tons of money and alleviate tons of suffering. It's the right thing to do for any ethical reason you…

Do school districts still use diesel? CNG seems pretty popular these days.

I'm in high school in the USA and am on multiple interscholastic sports teams, and am also interested in transportation. I have yet to see a single CNG school bus
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