Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

canarymedia.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 292 posts

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

#191

Post by brg »

derriz wrote: post #189
bsdetector wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Coal is used to establish a lower bound.

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

#192

Post by jillesvangurp »

ajford wrote: post #153
wolverine876 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would electric buses have more problems on winter roads than ICE buses?

Cold air impacting heath & capacity on the Li batteries, perhaps? Lithium batts tend to be finicky about their temperatures. Even my PHEV chevy volt de-rates the capacity if the ambient air temps hit less than 36*F.

There's an effect on range for sure. But there are also ways to mitigate that by for example heating the battery.

There are plenty of EVs operating under arctic conditions in Norway, for example. And not just in Oslo where temperatures are mild. Here's a story about a Norwegian with a model 3 that lives on the north coast of Norway in the arctic circle: https://electrek.co/2020/02/11/tesla-model-3-arctic-circle-w...

It seems that that particular car has some features that are genuinely nice to have when it is minus 32. Like the ability to warm it up before you get into it. That costs energy of course and that explains most of the range hit you get.

Most recent EVs have ways to cool (high temperatures are also a problem) and heat batteries, which older cars and phevs would have lacked. And of course the process of charging and discharging batteries actually warms batteries up as well. That's why heat is a problem and probably a bigger problem from an engineering point of view. Yet nobody ever complains about Tesla's not working in the desert. It's kind of a solved problem. Extreme temperatures affect range and you need to plan accordingly. But otherwise the battery will work fine.

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

#193

Post by jillesvangurp »

PaulHoule wrote: post #21

I ride on an electric bus a few times a week.. https://tcatbus.com/its-electric-on-the-ithaca-commons/

Plenty of electric buses driving around in Berlin where I live as well. Very nice when I bike through town. Nothing worse than getting stuck behind a stinking old diesel engine.

Shenzen in China switched all of their city buses to electric a few years ago. They have tens of thousands of them driving around there.

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

#194

Post by aurizon »

rootusrootus wrote: post #158
aurizon wrote: post #86

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?

> most will be under NDA's I expect? What are the odds that school districts are even legally allowed to sign such an NDA?

Hard to say. Most contracts are public access files. but I am not sure if there are redactions for competitive reasons?

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

#195

Post by zamalek »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #91
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…

(Disclaimer: have driven pure electric for going on 7.5 years) It may be more complex: electricity generation is very dirty in some regions, such as where coal is burned. Is it more dirty than diesel emissions? I have no idea, but old diesels were nasty.

The thing is that we're going to burn coal no matter what.

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

#196

Post by hedora »

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…

California's greatly surpasseed the misery of their old diesel fleets. In a bid to "reduce carbon emissions" (really: cut budgets in the way that screwed over parents as much as possible), they simply eliminated most school busses.

Then, the state government claimed this reduced carbon emissions, ignoring the externalities associated with doubling most parents' commutes for 18+ years.

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

#198

Post by ReaLNero »

hedora wrote: post #196
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…

California's greatly surpasseed the misery of their old diesel fleets. In a bid to "reduce carbon emissions" (really: cut budgets in the way that screwed over parents as much as possible), they simply eliminated most school busses. Then, the state government claimed this reduced carbon emissions, ignoring the externalities associated with doubling most parents' commutes for 18+ years.

Stating the obvious here, but eliminating school buses and thus making people have to drive their kids to school would INCREASE carbon emissions. So the statement is both factually incorrect and a shameless attempt at misdirection.

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

#199

Post by me_me_mu_mu »

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.

My parents were poor immigrants (mom couldn’t work legally due to immigration status), But yeah I’m glad I had other friends from my apartment complex that I could walk to school with.

You ever been to inner city? That’s probably where that 9% is from, unless you’ve got more stats you can pull up because it seems your only perspective is numbers you read on theatlantic or something along with your latte.

With less cars on the road as time goes on, I hope walking and public transit becomes a viable option. You ever seen kids going on the metro busses or light rail? I’ve only ever seen this in cities, and never in suburbs where I live now, except the kids who live across the street from the school.

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

#200

Post by scythe »

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 gives you about 10 kWh per kg, actually a little better than that:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-much-lithium-li-ion-vehic...

So, at the current elevated spot price, Li represents about 5% of the sticker price of a lithium battery. Plus, supply responses to demand growth in minerals tend to be relatively slow, which means that a short term price rise doesn't necessarily suggest a shortage of availability.

Post reply on HN