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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

#271

Post by Amezarak »

mtgx wrote: post #130
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…

> Diesel motors generate a substantial amount of fine particulate that is unhealthy for anybody, and particularly unhealthy for children. This is one of the biggest issues with US' private healthcare system. The U.S. government just doesn't feel that direct "cost" in the same way countries that have to pay to fix the health of their citizens do. This is why you see a lot of other countries put higher taxes on sugar,…

This is simply false.

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56571

> Federal Subsidies. In CBO and JCT’s projections, net federal subsidies (that is, the cost of all the subsidies minus the taxes and penalties) in 2021 for insured people are $920 billion, or 4.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

The US federal government (that is, excluding state and county governments, which also spend money on this) spends 920 billion dollars a year on health insurance and care. This also excludes the VA system (~200 billion), which does cover dependents. So that's 1.1 trillion per year by the federal government alone. To take California for an example, you can add another 100 billion in state spending on Medi-Cal. It's also not uncommon for counties and cities to operate and run their own hospital systems.

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

#272

Post by polygloty »

bluGill wrote: post #250
worik wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most parts that break on a car are common to electric or engines. Suspension, brake fluid (the brakes might last longer but the fluid should be replaced every few years), tires, doors, seats. It is true that a lot of parts are in common. But there are a lot of moving parts, susceptible to failure in an ICE not in electric. I spent a lot of money recently fixing an oil leak and replacing the cam belt on my ICE. Rout…

Sure, but I just spent a lot of money on my car fixing non engine related problems. Most of the moving parts in an engine are well lubricated and thus don't fail very often. The real expensive failure on any car is when road salt rusts the body away.

Can you name them? The engine is lubricated that well just because it gets the most wear and tear. The lubrication just tries to slow it down as much as possible. That's the reason why changing oil and filter is the first and foremost maintenance item on the list.

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

#273

Post by bluGill »

polygloty wrote: post #272
bluGill wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I just spent a lot of money on my car fixing non engine related problems. Most of the moving parts in an engine are well lubricated and thus don't fail very often. The real expensive failure on any car is when road salt rusts the body away.

Can you name them? The engine is lubricated that well just because it gets the most wear and tear. The lubrication just tries to slow it down as much as possible. That's the reason why changing oil and filter is the first and foremost maintenance item on the list.

Shocks, struts and other suspension parts. After 10 years and 170k miles they were well worn.. these get a lot of wear and are not well lubricated,if only because unlike an engine they cannot be sealed.

Windshield was cracked.

Something in the TPMS was messed up.

Brake fluid change (another thing that few people do but should be done)

I didn't pay to fix the blind spot warning system, I want to but the repair costs is more than the car is worth.

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

#274

Post by linksnapzz »

rasz wrote: post #201
VBprogrammer wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Cummins diesels, Toyota diesels, Kubota diesels, Yanmar diesels Yes definitely. US Detroit diesels? lol no.

DDC has been "detroit" in name only since the late '80s. First owned by Penske, then Daimler. The Series 60 and newer are perfectly acceptable diesels.

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

#275

Post by linksnapzz »

ReaLNero wrote: post #198
hedora wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Misleading and factually incorrect": the foundation of all public policy in CA.

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

#276

Post by screenbreakout »

drewcon wrote: post #264
VBprogrammer wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Diesel engines are so unreliable why are they used in practically every heavy goods vehicle, bus, tractor, plant equipment, ship and backup electric generator in operation today?

Torque.

I thought electric had better torque, ie acceleration...?

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

#277

Post by olivermarks »

kube-system wrote: post #228
olivermarks wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's incredible to me that EV enthusiasts are such zealots they refuse to take into account the facts around practicality, pollution and fire risk, just choosing to downvote instead. A demonstration of a gasoline vs battery fire https://youtu.be/tuVxwmnhqP4

That's a demonstration of a $99 harbor freight flux core welder, not a "battery fire" This is a EV fire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdaFk3w6rUY And this is a diesel school bus on fire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nPrUdP_POg If any vehicle catches on fire, you have to leave the vehicle, or risk death. There is no "safe fire"

Again, I suggest you digest 'Lithium-Ion Battery Fires in Electric Vehicles - Safety Risks to Emergency Responders' from the US NTSB which is analysis of types of EV vehicle fires. https://youtu.be/J6eS6JzBn0k

The 220v mig welder example was to demonstrate the different fire characteristics of a trapped/runaway energy battery fire vs gasoline fire. All commercial vehicles such as school buses have a significant fire risk from hydraulic fluids used for brakes, steering etc.

Here is is a refuse truck hydraulic fire example https://youtu.be/aj8-JlRqoWc

The dramatic bus fire you found was probably a combination of that and upholstery. Diesel is much less flammable than gasoline, one of the reasons for its use in commercial vehicles. https://www.anl.gov/article/7-things-you-might-not-know-abou...

Again, a major concern for me is the over reliance on electric door locks in EVs, which have trapped Tesla drivers who then burnt to death in high voltage fires. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/tesla-driv...

Manual locks would be far safer, especially on school bus full of children. I am not opposed to EVs but I do feel there is a very unrealistic utopian view of their strengths while completely ignoring weaknesses, mostly due to massive public relations persuasiveness.

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

#278

Post by xxpor »

elihu wrote: post #230
erosenbe0 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem is that 'diesel outages' on school nights are extremely rare or nonexistent. Maybe deliveries are late or pumps break but it seems like a solved problem. Electric trains are also a solved problem and are hardened from many power outages too. Whereas some work needs to be done to harden the infrastructure at the school district level to avoid electric bus outages.

If there's a major power outage, the school probably won't be in session either. Though getting the students home might be a problem if power goes out in the middle of a school day and the buses haven't charged enough to get the students home. (If they have enough reserve capacity it's probably not an issue.)

Worst case, you could have some diesel generators at the bus depot.

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

#279

Post by ajford »

hedora wrote: post #216
ajford wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that's mostly because it's a Chevy, not because managing lithium batteries in cold weather is an unsolved problem: https://news.yahoo.com/cold-hard-truth-evs-winter-103037566.... If you are in a climate where freezing weather is common, you might want to swap it for a different brand. There are comparably priced options that work well in the cold (just look at the chart in the…

While I don't doubt other manufacturers have taken steps to charge better at cold temperatures, since theoretically you can do this if you have the charger warm the pack up to temperatures above freezing, this isn't just an issue with my Chevy.

All battery chemistry suffers from degraded performance in cold temperatures, because they all rely on chemical processes that are hampered by cold. Lithium batteries are in some ways more susceptible because they are just a more finicky battery chemistry overall, being far more sensitive to charging currents, temperatures, and voltages.

There's tons of articles and references out there about the cares that must be taken with batteries of various chemistries, and they all talk about the low temperature issues.

- https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/news/2021-08-24-how-extreme-c...

- https://www.fluxpower.com/blog/the-importance-of-industrial-...

- https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-410-charging-at-hig....

- https://relionbattery.com/blog/the-best-battery-for-cold-wea....

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

#280

Post by wolverine876 »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #243
wongarsu wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heating the batteries and passenger compartment is quite expensive energy-wise, you certainly have to calculate that in when determining an appropriate battery size for such an application.

You don't need to heat the entire passenger compartment unless folks are in there, though. You just heat the bits that could benefit. This is the same sort of thinking behind the engine block heaters (for combustion engines) folks use when it is cold and a similar theory to trucks that heat their diesel tanks to keep the diesel from turning to gel, though I don't know if that's an issue anymore with modern diesel ble…

Where do the trucks get the energy to heat the tanks, assuming they are off? Electricity - is there enough in the battery? Keep the ICE running?
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