Electric school buses may actually make sense. Electric cars aren’t a good solution for most people because they take a long time to recharge and lose range quickly in cold weather.
When I started at North Royalton a couple of decades ago, I forwarded information to the administration about a government program to subsidize the conversion of school buses to natural gas. The district had some capped natural gas wells, so this could have been a great opportunity.
Are we finally entering an era of electric school buses?
It appears that way: A growing number of school districts are upgrading their student transportation with electric buses. The Biden-Harris Administration has paved the way for electric school buses with resources and funding.
School buses have tons of room for batteries. A school bus has two steel beams for a frame, with the body resting on top. Batteries could easily be nestled between the beams. District maintenance garages would have access to 220 V charging, or even 480 V 3 phase power. Home owners may not have 220 V available for a charger, so are looking at 8 hours for a full charge. Not convenient.
Bus drivers have fixed routes, so running out of a charge isn’t likely. Transportation for field trips and athletic events could be a concern. A wise district would consider retaining a number of diesel buses for those uses.
Heating uses a ton of energy. There is no way around that. Engines produce waste heat, so heating the passenger compartment isn’t an issue. For an electric vehicle, getting stuck in traffic in the Winter could end the trip. For student pickup, buses are generally on surface streets and the entire route isn’t likely to challenge the vehicle range.
The rest of the article dwells on stupid stuff.
Electric buses also provide a smoother, better ride to and from school; fewer vibrations on the bus mean lower body fatigue for students and drivers.
Nobody cares about that.
A quieter ride means children are more likely to arrive at school with a calmer headspace, ready and eager to learn.
Or that.
Electric fleets give back more energy than they consume during the day, and each electric bus has enough charge to provide electricity to four to six homes for one day.
I can’t tell what that is supposed to mean.
A mindset shift. While electric buses cost more, this should be viewed as strategic long-term investment for the betterment of our communities.
That’s a problem.
Electric buses doesn’t sound like a bad idea, but the articles proposing that approach should be more realistic, rather than just throwing in everything the author can think of. It makes me think they are lying about something.