EV shool buses?

[dmacarthur]

Our local school district owns its own buses, and the routes are fairly short (although mostly dirt roads), we are looking at getting electric buses to replace the old diesels. Anyone have any experience or any local hearsay about them? This seems like a good place to fish for info.

[gcrouse]

This article might be of interest to you.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/electrek.c ... s-40f/amp/

What state/area? Some states have incentives in certain areas for air quality improvement related to school buses. I know in IL Chicago and STL areas had something but can't remember exactly what.

[cwerdna]

I have 0 experience but recall seeing some back at Drive Electric Week EVents in Cupertino, CA years back.

When trying to Google for ev school buses plug-in america cupertino, I found a few hits like these:
https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/california- ... highlights
https://www.pgecurrents.com/2021/08/25/ ... alifornia/ (Pacific Gouge & Extort is a major electric utility in CA)
https://electrek.co/2018/04/09/blue-bir ... uses-road/
https://cleantechnica.com/2022/01/09/ge ... a-schools/
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles ... tric-buses

[gcrouse]

Found my old bookmark

This would be the place to look for incentives for your state: https://afdc.energy.gov/laws/state

[knightmb]

Our local school district owns its own buses, and the routes are fairly short (although mostly dirt roads), we are looking at getting electric buses to replace the old diesels. Anyone have any experience or any local hearsay about them? This seems like a good place to fish for info.

I have "riding" experience, they are awesome. A true "magic carpet" ride quality, no gear shifting, quiet enough to talk normally instead of over the engine and smell free (from diesel anyway )
This one had hydraulics to raise and lower it on the fly for easy access.

[gcrouse]

Here's one of the major manufacturers of electric buses: https://thelionelectric.com/en/products/electric

[cwerdna]

Maybe also dig around by Googling for central valley electric school bus. IIRC, Central Valley CA has air quality challenges.

I found https://www.schoolbusfleet.com/10125849 ... hool-buses. I actually used a free Caltrans DC FC in Madera (https://www.plugshare.com/location/303845). It's one of https://dot.ca.gov/news-releases/news-release-2021-001.

[LeftieBiker]

This one had hydraulics to raise and lower it on the fly for easy access.

Throw in a few aircraft hydraulic pumps and some trick wheels, and you have the world's biggest Low Rider.

[dmacarthur]

Thanks all! great resources..... now we wait to see what is actually available, Vermont is offering incentives but whether the net cost is possible remains to be seen. and whether EV buses make more sense in urban, or rural, locations is also up for experimentation. So far they look like urban creatures, although the ability to raise up a la Citroen and Tesla X would be great for mud season.....

[jjeff]

As you live in VT, a cooler place a worry I might have is keeping something as large as a bus warm. I could see keeping the inside warm and windows frost-free could take as much power as moving the bus around. As unpopular as it might be with some, to me it might be best for the bus to have a diesel heater, and just use the batteries to move the bus around. On something as large as a bus I suppose you could use other means to heat the bus, propane? which would be cleaner than diesel but heating with batteries alone seems like a large burden on the batteries.