[HN Gopher] US schools can subscribe to an electric bus fleet at...
___________________________________________________________________
US schools can subscribe to an electric bus fleet at lower prices
than diesel
Author : orangebanana1
Score : 363 points
Date : 2022-03-18 18:12 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.canarymedia.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.canarymedia.com)
| humanrebar wrote:
| What is the range on these?
|
| In rural area, yellow busses need to travel for two hours morning
| and night. And for extra-curricular activities, like
| transportation to away games, drives can last five hours or more.
| roamerz wrote:
| Cheaper for the school districts themselves maybe. I'd like to
| see an honest article that included the overall cost to taxpayers
| as well.
| guerby wrote:
| For those curious about EV bus including maintenance vs diesel
| EEVBlog has one episode on a private company switching to EV:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKs3LytrICA
| me_me_mu_mu wrote:
| 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.
| mike_d wrote:
| 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.
| me_me_mu_mu wrote:
| 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.
| lucastheisen wrote:
| what is a reasonable walking distance? 9% seems like a
| surprisingly small number.
| judge2020 wrote:
| From a 2014 study in Norfolk, UK[0] (note: UK should have
| relatively similar child obesity rates as the US at this
| time, given they only surpassed the US in 2018[1]):
|
| > This study shows that young people living closer to
| school are more likely to walk to school than those living
| further away (Panter et al., 2008, Pont et al., 2009). The
| novel contribution of this work is the identification of
| the threshold distances that children walk to school, and
| that this increases as young people age; the criterion
| distances were 1421 m (0.8 miles) at 10 years, 1627 m (~1
| mile) at 11 years and 3046 m (~1.9 miles) at 14 years.
|
| However, note that US suburbs are often vastly more spread
| out while servicing the same size population: for example,
| Worcester, England at 100k population is only 12 square
| miles[2] and Chico California with 100k population is 34
| square miles[3].
|
| 0: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S13538
| 2921...
|
| 1: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5750341/Bigger-
| 11-y...
|
| 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worcester,_England
|
| 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chico,_California
| me_me_mu_mu wrote:
| Just looked at CDC website it says fewer than 20%.
|
| Suburbs have been the only place where I've seen lots of
| yellow busses because everything is so spread out. Idk
| where that dude got his numbers, go to any city in the USA
| and you'll see kids taking public transit to school aka
| walking.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2016/15_0573.htm#:~:text=Est
| i....
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| Not every school system provides transportation, and when
| they do, some states (maybe all?) require that
| transportation be provided by a yellow school bus and not
| a city bus. (My father ran into this in Indiana).
|
| I'm gonna guess that in at least some of these areas,
| they walk/take busses because the school system doesn't
| provide transportation.
| moltke wrote:
| I think car usage is likely to go up unless the crime in cities
| is dealt with. For that to happen we have to stop calling
| constructive peace keeping work "racist" though and that seems
| unlikely.
| elihu wrote:
| 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 range.
| In schoolbuses especially, it would be good to use a kind of
| battery that's much less likely to catch on fire.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| 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
| against established Chinese manufacturers that can already make
| state of the art, high quality batteries at insane volumes.
| elihu wrote:
| 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.
| dont__panic wrote:
| 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 elements with
| fans. Given that an electric bus could easily fit an enormous
| battery slab under the seating, I wonder if electric buses
| could be even better than ICE buses in cold conditions --
| barring the obvious issues with battery efficiency in cold.
| elihu wrote:
| 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.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| 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.
| mjevans wrote:
| 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.
| speedgoose wrote:
| Is safety a criteria for school bus in USA? I thought it was
| only cost since the design is from the last century and many
| bus don't even have seatbelts.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| IIRC the conclusion was that requiring seat belts slows down
| the loading / unloading process and decreases ridership
| enough that more kids will actually get hurt when their
| parents drive them to school instead (since cars are far more
| dangerous to riders than giant heavy slow-moving busses).
| elihu wrote:
| When it comes to batteries, I can't imagine safety not being
| a major design consideration. EV fires are maybe exaggerated
| a bit in the media because of the novelty whereas ICE vehicle
| fires aren't as newsworthy, but they're still a thing that
| can happen and could potentially be very destructive and
| hazardous especially on something with a huge battery pack
| like a bus. Using a kind of battery that tends not to burst
| into flames if ill-treated seems like a good idea.
| jws wrote:
| The NHTSA recognizes that large busses are not cars and use a
| different solution.
|
| _Large school buses are heavier and distribute crash forces
| differently than passenger cars and light trucks do. Because
| of these differences, bus passengers experience much less
| crash force than those in passenger cars, light trucks, and
| vans.
|
| NHTSA decided the best way to provide crash protection to
| passengers of large school buses is through a concept called
| "compartmentalization." This requires that the interior of
| large buses protect children without them needing to buckle
| up. Through compartmentalization, children are protected from
| crashes by strong, closely-spaced seats that have energy-
| absorbing seat backs._
|
| Statistics bear this out, taking a school bus to school is
| about 70 times more likely to deliver a student safely. In
| this context, 70 is huge.
| speedgoose wrote:
| It's a nice way to say that kids can slam the seats.
| [deleted]
| daemoens wrote:
| They'll slam into the seats and still be safer.
| freeflight wrote:
| 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.be/OvNjVQkye8Y
| MathCodeLove wrote:
| 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.
| freeflight wrote:
| 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.
| mywittyname wrote:
| And airbags is a nice way of saying a little bomb is
| going to blow up in your face if you crash.
| freeflight wrote:
| This NTSB PSA video explains it like "eggs in a carton"
| [0], but those bus seats look like regular benches, zero
| molding for an actual fit, like an egg would have inside a
| carton from all sides.
|
| I understand that getting a horde of kids to put on
| seatbelts is a compliance nightmare, but imho it's
| difficult to argue how that wouldn't make a massive
| difference in a crash scenario, particularly during roll-
| over incidents [1]
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/ksw67zFnuAE
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/l4uHbX0SL_w (NSFW)
| Symbiote wrote:
| How common do you think that is? There seem to be several
| videos, but perhaps there's a lot of CCTV on school
| buses.
|
| I can't remember ever seeing pictures of a city bus (as
| opposed to a long distance bus) overturned in an accident
| in Europe. City bus-type vehicles are used for public bus
| service and school bus service ("school bus" is a usage,
| not a type of vehicle) but searching for things like "bus
| crash England" shows very, very few cases where a bus has
| overturned, even when it's come off the road and slid
| down a slope.
|
| If [1] is anything to go by, the bus needs to hit a
| similarly heavy vehicle to overturn. Could the American
| school bus design be susceptible to climbing up/rolling
| over a car, then tipping, compared to the typical
| European low-floor lower-centre-of-gravity bus?
|
| (No doubt there are other factors that influence the
| American school bus design.)
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/dec/16/bus-
| toppled-colli...
| kube-system wrote:
| School busses have a ton of safety features -- just with a
| different strategy than is applied to cars. Part of the
| reason many don't have seat belts is because they are also
| designed to have safety features that work without seatbelts.
| The passengers are rowdy kids who might not always wear their
| seatbelts, so while adding them might increase protection in
| some cases, a safety design that primarily relies on
| seatbelts might not actually be a great idea.
|
| US school busses are heavy and sit very high. Busses can be
| hit by cars with little force imparted to the occupants. The
| most dangerous thing about school busses is the risk it poses
| to the other drivers that hit it:
| https://www.chron.com/news/houston-
| texas/houston/article/Cra...
| missedthecue wrote:
| There have been a ton of DOT and NHTSA studies that have
| shown that seatbelts don't keep children that much safer
| during accidents that involve school busses, because the
| children are high off the ground, busses don't move at very
| high speeds, 48 children wearing seatbelts makes a
| firefighters rescue job 100x harder, etc...
| xxpor wrote:
| Seat belts have been required in some states for decades at
| this point. We had them on buses when I was in elementary
| school 20 years ago, in NJ.
|
| Now... getting kids to actually use them is a different
| matter.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| In many of the most common situations - they just don't
| matter that much on a school bus.
|
| The bus is generally the largest vehicle on the road, and
| an impact from a car (or even pickup truck/suv) is unlikely
| to significantly move the bus. Plus - the sit very high,
| and impacts tend to drive the other vehicle down - rather
| than moving the body of the bus.
|
| The only situation they really are useful is when the bus
| rolls, and for buses that aren't driving highway speeds
| (which is most of them), they almost never roll (the only
| exception is essentially driver error - where the bus
| leaves the road on slope)
| sremani wrote:
| 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.
| coryrc wrote:
| Lithium is a tiny fraction of battery cost.
| sremani wrote:
| 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/
| elihu wrote:
| 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.)
| thescriptkiddie wrote:
| The only component of the battery which contains Lithium
| is the cathode, which according to the article you linked
| is a little less than 1/3 of the material cost, or around
| 20% of the total cost. The battery chemistry which
| contains the most Lithium is Lithium Cobalt Oxide, which
| by weight is approximately 7% Lithium and 60% Cobalt.
| Even though Lithium is vastly more expensive than Cobalt,
| Cobalt still accounts for the majority of the cathode
| material cost. So it seems like Lithium accounts for at
| most 10% of the cost of the battery.
| scythe wrote:
| 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.
| pg_bot wrote:
| I think you are underestimating the ingenuity of humans.
| Shortages can lead to new, more efficient ways of doing
| things. High prices are going to encourage more lithium
| production, or research into perfect substitutes. It's highly
| unlikely that in a decade battery prices will be higher than
| they are today.
| xxpor wrote:
| Yes, that's a great point. Even if you ignore the usual idle
| time between the morning and afternoon runs, I have to imagine
| a range of 150-200 miles would cover ~95% of use cases. The bus
| problem therefore should be much easier than the long haul
| truck problem. Plus, there's no trailer so you could run the
| battery pack the entire length of the bus.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| They work really well for city buses also, although they need
| some charging at the ends. Still have a sweet spot in regards
| to range though even though the latest generation allows for
| high capacity buses. They needed to rework a bunch of lines
| to fit in the envelope.
|
| https://www.electricitygoteborg.se/en/news/improved-urban-
| en...
|
| Also helps that Volvo is headquartered in Goteborg, so always
| eager to try new things. The first "prototype" style BEV bus
| line opened early 2015.
| erosenbe0 wrote:
| 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.
| elihu wrote:
| 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.)
| xxpor wrote:
| Worst case, you could have some diesel generators at the
| bus depot.
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| A better alternative is the trolley bus, no batteries needed.
| https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-51034523
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| that's excellent for city busses that run all day with good
| frequency, but I would not say so for school busses, whose
| reason to exist is to collect students that live far away from
| the school for one specific commute only. Should the
| municipality really build out overhead powerlines for 20 miles
| of cornfields just for one passenger needing only 2 trips per
| day, possibly less if that student has after-school activities?
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| These services are already outsourced in many school districts,
| with the district doing nothing more than contracting out for
| certain service levels and writing a check. Presumably if it
| pencils out, those contractors will switch to electric without
| even needing to consult the board of education.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| Do you mind pointing to a few companies who offer said contract
| services? Is it mostly a metropolitan thing?
| kasey_junk wrote:
| Chicago Public Schools has dozens of bus contractors. Here is
| one that is relatively big: https://www.unitedquick.com/
|
| You can find bus contracts given to the owners of single
| busses though those firms do t have large web presences.
| HelixEndeavor wrote:
| School buses are one of those areas I'm surprised EV's haven't
| completely consumed already. They basically play to every single
| strength EVs have.
| chillingeffect wrote:
| Nice thing about this application is the predictability of the
| routes. And compared to city buses the ratio of time driving per
| regen is larger. I assume drain and recharge puts wear on the
| batteries?
| tpmx wrote:
| _Shorter routes and longer idle periods mean that school buses
| can be charged at lower intensities over longer periods of time
| than commercial vehicles that have to charge quickly to get back
| on the road_
|
| Most relevant sentence in this article.
| buggythebug wrote:
| Have met the owner. Stand up guy
| clarge1120 wrote:
| Do schools rent busses today, or is this new?
| [deleted]
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Great news. Buses and government vehicles are perfect for
| electric. They go back to dedicated parking lots perfect for
| charging.
|
| We desperately need to force electric vehicles for the upcoming
| USPS replacements too.
|
| The funding / reform bill passed, but as far as I can tell it
| does not mandate or address the fleet. DeJoy said he was
| replacing with gas. There was a proposed bill but I can't find
| any recent news on it.
|
| Ridiculous to spend that much money on 100% custom built vehicles
| that are gas powered.
| sanp wrote:
| I still don't get that TCO for EV is higher than Diesel.
|
| On the consumer side, let's look at Tesla Model Y vs. Lexus RX
| 350. I am using "premium" makes on both sides of this equations.
| If we want to go with a cheaper ICE then it should be compared
| with a cheaper EV. Idea being, there is a reasonable comparison
| where EV comes out ahead on TCO.
|
| Cost / mile: $0.04 vs. $0.10 Difference in purchase cost: $55K
| (base model Lexus) vs $59K (base model). Include $7500 Fed Credit
| this comes to ~$56K (assuming a 35% marginal tax rate) Average
| miles per year: 12K. So fuel savings of ~$720 Even assuming a
| very generous cost of capital even TCO over 2 years beats ICE.
| That's before maintenance costs (which seem to be lower for EV).
| xxpor wrote:
| A tesla won't get the tax credit any more (they've sold too
| many cars). Unless that's changed with one of the covid
| packages.
| meragrin_ wrote:
| Doubt it. Whenever EVs have been mentioned, it has been
| specifically about union shops. Tesla does not have a union
| so they are evil.
| aaronax wrote:
| I guess you have shown that in the luxury segment the TCO comes
| out better for EVs. Many people are not buying $50k+ luxury
| vehicles. Care to run an estimate for something like what I was
| buying a year ago? I was in the market for a loaded 5 year old
| vehicle with 60-80k miles for $10-13k (Dodge Dart for example,
| also liked a few Ford Fusion options). There were options like
| this available, though I happened to stumble upon the
| apocryphal 13 year old 175k miles $1,000 Honda and went with
| that.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| When I leased our Bolt, the retail price was $23K. Costs me
| 1.7 cents a mile in fueling costs. It is a good bit nicer
| than an 80K Dodge Dart, of course, but it's a data point. I
| also have time-of-use rates, which helps.
|
| Anyway. Assuming 27 mpg for the Dart (this is what Fuelly
| says average Dart owners experience) and $4.67 gasoline (the
| US average from a few days ago), should cost around 17 cents
| a mile in gasoline. Assuming an average of 14.8 cents per kWh
| (the US average from February) and 3 miles per kWh (somewhat
| conservative, but close enough) for the Bolt, you'd be
| looking at 5 cents per mile in electricity.
|
| Not a perfect comparison, the Bolt would be brand new with a
| warranty, etc, but at least it's not a luxury EV comparison,
| just an appliance car like a Dart. You'd break even on costs
| at 76K miles.
|
| Of course, at that point the Bolt has just reached the
| mileage the Dart started at, and so it will quickly pull
| ahead in TCO. If you do a lot of road trips you might not
| like it, but if you primarily drive in the city you will
| really like not having to stop once a week to get gas.
| clomond wrote:
| TCOs for individual consumers will be vastly different
| depending on the parameters of the situation, with particular
| impact driven by volume of miles driven annually.
|
| Due to this, commercial fleets in my view have a much clearer
| picture here than personal vehicle decisions. This is also
| particularly driven by personal vehicle purchases being driven
| less by "TCO" in a strict sense but rather "what is my monthly
| payment".
| sanp wrote:
| That's fair. TCO decisions are probably more relevant in a
| commercial context.
| gregshap wrote:
| Tax credits are dollar for dollar reduction in taxes owed.
| There's no reason to apply a marginal tax rate.
| sanp wrote:
| Not sure I follow. The effective benefit of this tax break is
| different based on your tax bracket. So, we should be using
| the marginal tax rate.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| In what world is the maintenance cost for a fleet of EV busses
| going to be less than that of a diesel? There are two orders of
| magnitude more diesel mechanics than people qualified to work
| on EV drivetrains.
| ajford wrote:
| There's far less going on in a normal EV drivetrain, which
| kinda supports the lower maintenance cost.
|
| Fewer fluids required, just your differential and some
| coolant for the motors really.
|
| Given the specialization of parts, it's far more likely that
| any performed maintenance is going to be more of a swap for
| known-good parts and sending them off to the home-office for
| reconditioning.
| slfnflctd wrote:
| I think the argument is that EVs will require vastly less
| maintenance, which makes sense on paper. I'm not sure how
| well that will bear out in the near to mid term, though, as
| these are new designs which haven't been put through the
| paces yet.
|
| It's a pretty big transportation sector we're talking about
| (half a million of these buses in the US), so it will not be
| a fast transition and early adopters will be paying higher
| costs than later ones to iron out the kinks. Most districts
| are probably waiting for someone else to try it out first.
| akira2501 wrote:
| How many Diesel repair shops are there vs. heavy duty EV
| vehicle repair shops?
| Symbiote wrote:
| Plenty, according to the presentation linked elsewhere in
| this discussion.
|
| Cummins (the major manufacturer of engines, generators etc)
| will service the high voltage parts of the bus.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _I am using "premium" makes on both sides of this equations_
|
| I guess, but a "premium" Model Y doesn't have any features that
| a far lesser ICE doesn't have, with inferior build quality.
| That's kind of the point. A premium Honda, VW or Toyota SUV are
| better comparisons, and substantially cheaper. Of course, that
| makes the TCO much more competitive...
| sanp wrote:
| We can compare these ICEs to a Mach-e or an ID.4 or an Ioniq
| 5. Build quality on these is pretty comparable to premium ICE
| models from these manufactures.
| fasteddie31003 wrote:
| I believe batteries and electric motors can replace almost all
| applications of gas engines. However, diesel engines still are a
| step too far now IMO. Most people have never operated a diesel
| engine. Their efficiency is very impressive. My 7,000 lbs truck
| with a Cummins diesel engine gets better MPGs than my partner's
| 4,000 lbs Mini Cooper Countryman.
| bsder wrote:
| Except that a school bus tends to operate a diesel in its worst
| conditions.
|
| Lots of idling. Lots of low RPM operation. Lots of stop and
| start wasting a lot of energy into the brakes.
|
| A school bus is practically engineered to be an EV propaganda
| piece.
| jtlienwis wrote:
| How much will they weigh compared to a Diesel bus? Road
| damage is to the fourth power of axle weight. Any cost
| savings may be just shifted to the road department for fixing
| pot holes. I think the VW EV is almost twice the weight of a
| same size ICE car. 16x the road damage. Plus, how much damage
| when this EV bus slides on the ice and hits something? Twice
| the damage if twice the weight.
| kube-system wrote:
| School bus weight is generally seen as a good thing,
| because we care more about keeping kids safe than road
| damage or damage to other vehicles.
| gbear605 wrote:
| The battery doesn't necessarily need to be that large,
| since the range can be small (<25 miles for most school
| districts assuming that they can charge during the day).
| Probably a school bus could get away with an battery the
| same size as one in a Tesla, so the weight of the rest of
| the bus probably dominates. Probably the weight of the
| students alone is a lot more when fully loaded.
| bsder wrote:
| It seems that these are the same weight. That's probably
| not a coincidence.
|
| This lists the GVWR for the diesels at up to 36,200 lbs.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Bird_All_American
|
| This lists the GVWR for electrics at the same: https://asse
| ts.ctfassets.net/ucu418cgcnau/362sQcGinJzFxVqFh0...
|
| Electrics also tend to benefit from better traction in
| crummy conditions because the batteries create a fixed,
| lower center of gravity.
|
| Do note that the drive system for these EV buses is
| apparently built by Cummins. For Cummins to put the effort
| in, they see a reason.
| Animats wrote:
| Right. Plus it travels a known number of miles per day, and
| recharges at the same place each day.
|
| (Although, field trips?)
| danans wrote:
| > Most people have never operated a diesel engine. Their
| efficiency is very impressive.
|
| All else equal (vehicle class, size, performance, driving
| style), the operating cost per mile of an EV is 1/4 to 1/2 the
| operating cost per mile of a diesel or gasoline vehicle, even
| in states with very expensive electricity like California or
| Hawaii.
| ilikeatari wrote:
| Is there a specific data set you are referencing? How about
| other components like Ownership and Support?
| danans wrote:
| I've just done the math on my car operating costs. At
| today's gas prices (admittedly high due to the Ukraine
| war), the price of electricity in CA would have to more
| than triple for me to pay the same as I would for gas.
| Before the recent gas price spike it was like 2.25X to use
| gas.
|
| > How about other components like Ownership and Support?
|
| Do you mean depreciation and maintenance? Depreciation on
| recent EVs has been just like other types of vehicles in
| their respective classes. Granted, these are relatively new
| cars - there isn't much longitudinal data on EV
| maintenance, but every indication is that it should be less
| than ICE vehicles.
|
| And can you put a price on the great driving experience of
| an EV (flat power curve, low center of gravity, silent, no
| combustion smell)? Probably, but I haven't tried.
| stonogo wrote:
| My results are similar to yours. I don't know if you can
| put a price on silent, non-oil-based, clean-running
| driving experiences, but it does come with the charge-
| time pain point. I look forward to the five-minute refuel
| I left behind to get the other benefits of an EV...
| danans wrote:
| > but it does come with the charge-time pain point. I
| look forward to the five-minute refuel I left behind to
| get the other benefits of an EV...
|
| Since I charge at home, this is only a pain point on road
| trips (though diminishing with the growing number of high
| power chargers along highways). However, I understand how
| it's a pain for apartment dwellers who don't have their
| own charging stations.
|
| So we need better street-side public charging
| infrastructure for them - but also for single-family-home
| dwellers with a second car that doesn't fit in the
| driveway. Living in a single-family-home shouldn't be a
| precondition for driving an EV.
| Gracana wrote:
| What is your truck? RAM 3500s with Cummins diesels come in
| 7000lb configurations, but we're talking ~15mpg, nowhere close
| to a countryman.
| fasteddie31003 wrote:
| My 03 Ram 2500 gets 24 MPG
| Gracana wrote:
| That's incredible.
| https://www.fuelly.com/car/dodge/ram_2500/2003
| mywittyname wrote:
| Maybe they call him fasteddie because he drives so slow.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| If he buys an electric truck he can change his name to
| Crazy Eddie when he sells it
| ilikeatari wrote:
| Personally I am very exited about it but we lack data that does
| allow us to do proper TCO comparison of ICE vs EV on the heavy
| duty side. Also how does V2G economics actually work if you are
| trying to optimize for the lowest charging rate (usually during
| night to avoid peak)? If you are in V2G mode after 6 pm i assume
| you would need to start charging at night during cheapest rates
| and assure that the bus is charged by 5 am. Wouldn't this require
| 1 to 1 charger to bus ratio as you might not have enough time to
| swap? Wouldn't then infrastructure costs(chargers that are build
| and concrete around it) skyrocket?
| sokoloff wrote:
| Any overnight charging solution almost surely needs a 1-to-1
| ratio anyway, because you're probably not going to pay an
| expensive and unreliable human to plug and unplug buses
| overnight every night when a charger will last 10+ years.
| You're already paying the bus driver to park the bus and to
| drive it away in the morning. Add a minute of bus driver labor
| to plug it in and a minute to unplug it in the morning.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _we lack data that does allow us to do proper TCO comparison
| of ICE vs EV on the heavy duty side_
|
| These districts have transferred that risk to the provider.
| Which seems reasonable.
| ilikeatari wrote:
| Yes, makes sense from the districts perspective, but I meant
| from sustainability of the business model perspective.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Hmm...buses that (per the article) cost 2x or 3x what diesel ones
| would. From a company that's raising a whole lotta $$$ from VC's.
| And (plausibly) school districts will get rid of their old diesel
| bus fleets when they switch over...
|
| Is anyone else suspecting an "of course we'll loose money like
| crazy, until we hit 'em with the massive price increase" business
| model?
|
| EDIT: Wow, huge response. 3 points to add:
|
| - Yes, kids not breathing fumes is better...but that doesn't
| change the company's nor the school district's finances.
|
| - No, I have no good data on whether the "vastly lower TCO will
| cover the higher up front cost..." theory is 100% correct, or
| utter BS.
|
| - My one not-too-close data point: A friend worked for a
| metropolitan bus system ~2011. She said they were getting rid of
| their "~1.4 up-front cost" diesel-electric hybrid buses - because
| the _real_ TCO was considerably worse than the older, straight-
| diesel buses.
| [deleted]
| ihsw wrote:
| scythe wrote:
| Frankly, if they rip off school districts in order to keep kids
| from inhaling nitrogen dioxide, that's still a better business
| model than most of the ones I've heard.
| mirntyfirty wrote:
| I think that depends on the extent to which they rip them
| off.
| scythe wrote:
| I guess you're probably right. But it seems like we're
| looking at a small factor (2-3) applied to the usual price
| of a school bus. Of course, there are also reasons it might
| not be a ripoff, as others brought up (lower ops costs,
| economy of scale). I just felt like highlighting the
| problems with prioritizing price over all else around the
| health of primary schoolchildren.
| jandrese wrote:
| The upfront price difference should be offset in the long term
| by buying cheap electricity instead of expensive diesel.
| vardump wrote:
| > Hmm...buses that (per the article) cost 2x or 3x what diesel
| ones would.
|
| What about when you consider total life cycle costs? Diesel
| fuel costs often many times of cost of the vehicle over its
| lifespan.
|
| Fuel costs will likely increase quite a bit in the future.
| coryrc wrote:
| > She said they were getting rid of their "~1.4 up-front cost"
| diesel-electric hybrid buses - because the real TCO was
| considerably worse
|
| In my city, the original hybrids used Toyota Prius batteries
| and deep cycled them, which they weren't designed for, killing
| them and requiring regular replacements. That couldn't have
| been good for the budget.
| pengaru wrote:
| The "subscribed" buses will be privately owned and operated,
| they'll be increasingly filled with advertising and other
| predatory bullshit for exploiting the passengers.
| gruez wrote:
| >they'll be increasingly filled with advertising and other
| predatory bullshit for exploiting the passengers
|
| What's this based on ? AFAIK many school districts already
| contract out their school bus service. Are we seeing that in
| those cases?
| [deleted]
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| Literally all the school buses in my area are operated by
| private companies which contract with the local public school
| districts. None of them are full of advertising.
| elliekelly wrote:
| "You're only two bus rides away from your next Robux reward!"
| krasin wrote:
| Don't forget a snack machine with sweets right inside the
| bus.
| tentacleuno wrote:
| Or... A cold drinks machine, with all the bus windows
| locked shut. I'm sure I remember something about McDonalds
| putting _more_ salt in the chips [ / food] so people buy a
| drink.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| So like city buses?
| arcticbull wrote:
| Not really, no. City busses recognize revenue from
| advertising and use it to subsidize fares. Being a public
| service, the public benefits. On the other hand, private
| bus fleets with private advertisements on loan to school
| districts will recognize that advertising revenue as
| profit, benefiting shareholders. Not everything needs a
| profit motive.
| roughly wrote:
| I don't know what the split is elsewhere, but it's worth
| noting that for BART in the Bay Area, at least, makes
| something like $10m/yr, compared to nearly $500m/yr in
| actual fares - so, in exchange for approximately 2% of
| annual revenues, we get BART trains and stations covered
| in ads.
|
| Edit: Thought to look this up for SFMTA - 2020 proposed
| budget (projections as of 2019, chosen because it's the
| last "normal" year) - total revenue $1.2Bn, "Advertising,
| interest, and service fees" $54m.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I think that's pretty unlikely, at least with schoolbuses.
| The US has laws around child privacy and advertising that
| companies easily flaunt online, but are much more difficult
| to flaunt when your product is a physical bus.
|
| OTOH, I would not be surprised to see these buses rusting in
| a storage lot within a decade because these firms have closed
| up shop and some random server somewhere is no longer
| responding to requests. I hope (but am not hopeful) that
| municipal and state governments take measures during
| procurement to ensure that they aren't being turned into
| captive customers.
| roywiggins wrote:
| In the '90s the dairy industry managed to get "got milk"
| posters into approximately every US elementary school.
| gruez wrote:
| Was that through private businesses, or through the
| government?
| gbear605 wrote:
| In my school district, the milk producer just gave a
| slight discount on the milk they sold to the school. They
| were still making a profit, just slightly less per unit
| (and presumably more overall since sales went up).
| treeman79 wrote:
| Milk was my one true vice. Swear the stuff is more
| addictive them anything. Yes I'm boring.
|
| Spent many years thinking it was healthy. Much regret.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I always found it sort of disgusting, but as an adult
| discovered that 1 tablespoon of Valhrona powdered cocoa,
| 1 tablespoon of Equal Exchange baking cocoa and 2
| tablespoons of sugar in 1.75 cups of grass-fed organic
| whole milk deals with the bad part.
| AdamN wrote:
| Captivate screens behind each seat with 'educational'
| content and pre-roll/banner ads. "We're giving kids extra
| education through new technology and they also learn about
| the value of chocolate sugar milk at the same time!"
| Johnny555 wrote:
| The average lifetime of a schoolbus is 10 - 12 years, so if
| they do manage to keep this service going for a decade,
| that's pretty good -- in 10 years the schol district would
| have been ready to refresh their fleet anyway, and
| hopefully the reason this business can't survive long-term
| is that electric buses become cheaper and ubiquitous.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| Part of the reason for the 10-12 year lifespan is that
| ICE motors are really complicated and at a certain point,
| it's cheaper to throw out the bus than pay for motor
| repairs. EV motors last a lot longer and are a lot easier
| to maintain.
| prawn wrote:
| Rather than throw them out, I'd say there's an optimal
| point to sell them off. (A couple of years ago, I bought
| a bus that was sold by an institution when the mileage
| reached a certain point.)
| Amezarak wrote:
| The electric motor might last, all the electronics,
| probably not.
| akomtu wrote:
| Are batteries going to last this long? And batteries are
| usually 50% of the vehicle price.
| pengaru wrote:
| They should really be leasing the batteries and buying
| buses having easily swapped batteries conforming to a
| standard a competitive power systems market can cater to.
| sockaddr wrote:
| While not ideal, the alternative is kids continuing to sit in
| buses that idle for long periods of time slowly leaking diesel
| exhaust into the cabin area (at least that was the case with
| the Bluebird models I rode as a kid), that can't be good.
| bnt wrote:
| Yea, here the batteries catch fire and a bunch of kids burn
| to death. Grim, but possible.
| kube-system wrote:
| Fire risk is a major reason why we already put as many as 8
| or more emergency exits on full size school busses.
| olivermarks wrote:
| https://youtu.be/J6eS6JzBn0k Lithium-Ion Battery Fires in
| Electric Vehicles - Safety Risks to Emergency
| RespondersNTSBGov
|
| Thermal runaway, stranded energy and battery reignition
| should preclude EV usage to transport children until
| adequate safety measures are put in place. EV car fires
| are intense, high voltage and severe. A bus full of
| children fire doesn't bear thinking about.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Ever been near a car fire? They burn pretty well and
| you'll feel it from the other side of a multilane road.
| I've also seen buses burn. Is there a reason to think
| that more kids are going to burn in electric busses than
| ICE ones?
| olivermarks wrote:
| Ever been near an EV fire?
|
| They burn with the equivalent of a 220v welder across the
| whole battery skateboard, will literally melt aluminum
| wheels and body parts and require 20 tons of water to
| temporarily extinguish. There's a huge difference between
| an ICE vehicle fire, which is essentially rubber,
| upholstery and plastics burning sometime compounded by
| gasoline vapor and an EV thermal runaway trapped energy
| event. I think all EVs should be required to have manual
| escape locks etc at a minimum.
| https://youtu.be/J6eS6JzBn0k
| olivermarks wrote:
| 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
| kube-system wrote:
| 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"
| olivermarks wrote:
| 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.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Right, because diesel buses are totally not flammable at
| all.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I bought a number of plastic "jerry cans" that all had
| stickers on them saying you shouldn't use gasoline or
| diesel to start fires.
|
| Oddly the reason why is different for the two fluids.
| Gasoline can catch fire quickly and form a fireball,
| whereas diesel is hard to ignite and won't help start a
| fire.
|
| This movie
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_5th_Wave_(film)
|
| has a scene where the kids set a school bus on fire with
| the fuel which isn't realistic.
| sokoloff wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nL10C7FSbE compares the
| flammability of several types of fuels.
|
| 2m08s for Jet-A. 3m50s for #2 diesel. 6m03s for heating
| oil. 7m30s for kerosene (all those are basically the same
| and surprising to most how not flammable they are in
| liquid form). 10m15s for avgas. 11m30s for auto gas.
| lstodd wrote:
| That's some bullshit video.
|
| All you need is some tissue and a gas soldering iron or
| equivalent lighter. Lights up in under one second.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Back in the day we would make 'firebowls' with a metal
| bowl and burning various liquids, igniting it with a long
| lighter. We would burn everything from gasoline to corn
| oil that way.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| Not likely, not without being in a serious accident.
| Despite the Chevy Bolt's highly publicized battery fires
| (which did not kill anyone), EV batteries don't usually
| burst into flames unprovoked. The battery will be well
| protected in a school bus frame.
| pavon wrote:
| ICE vehicles have orders of magnitude higher fire risk than
| EV. https://www.kbb.com/car-news/study-electric-vehicles-
| involve...
| loudmax wrote:
| I think it's important to keep the electrification and
| subscription aspects distinct.
|
| Electrification of bus fleets is an absolute good. Electric
| buses may cost more in the short run, but for the sake of
| children's health, not to mention the world they live in,
| school districts should be dumping diesel in favor of
| electric as soon as they can afford to do so. As taxpayers we
| should be ready to foot the bill.
|
| There are real concerns with privatization of school bus
| fleets though. Safety obviously, but also advertising and
| marketing to children as other posters have pointed out. If a
| company offered school districts a subscription model with
| diesel buses we'd be rightfully suspicious of where this
| could lead. We should maintain these suspicions even as we
| encourage phasing out diesel fleets in favor of electric.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| School bus fleets are already significantly privatized[1].
| Not making judgement calls there, just pointing out that
| ship has sailed.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Student_(United_Stat
| es)
| michael1999 wrote:
| It is a different calculation for the school board. For them,
| the costs of retraining staff, retooling a shop, increasing
| parts inventory are all big costs. Plus the risk of buying a
| bunch of lemons.
|
| Leasing them with performance guarantees moves not just the
| costs, but also the _risks_ to a specialist better suited to
| carrying them.
|
| I don't know if this firm is legit, but the deal could make
| sense.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| This is a fairly standard reframing when your product has lower
| TCO but higher upfront costs.
|
| If people just look at the upfront cost, they have that 2x or
| 3x gut reaction and just switch off.
|
| Some nerdier types might draw up a spreadsheet and know exactly
| how many months they'd expect to break even and start saving.
|
| People familiar with spreadsheets probably also don't have that
| much trouble getting loans and paying them back on time, and
| doing even more sums to see if that makes financial sense.
|
| But your average school bus buyer perhaps needs someone else to
| do all that for them, hedge the risk and present it to them as
| an immediate saving on their monthly spend.
|
| People have sold rooftop solar this way, or replaced kerosene
| lamps in Africa with solar and batteries, and EVs Vs monthly
| Car payment plus fuel.
| AnonCoward4 wrote:
| I want to see that spreadsheet.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| https://afdc.energy.gov/files/docs/vice-beb.xlsx
| roughly wrote:
| It's not just the cost over time, it's the availability of
| capital in large clumps - also known as "the cost of being
| poor:" It may be 5x cheaper in the long run to pay 3x the
| cost today, but if you don't have 3x the cost today, well,
| good luck.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Capex <=> Opex swaps are pretty common, and it's not just a
| matter of poverty. (It's why airlines lease their planes.)
| Swap "subscribe" with "lease" and this article becomes less
| interesting.
| roughly wrote:
| > Swap "subscribe" with "lease" and this article becomes
| less interesting
|
| To VCs, too
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| Yeah, and school's budgets are cash tight, with
| comparatively little ability to fundraise, so any large
| cash transaction will be DOA.
|
| The swap should take place, and I'm now wondering why
| this hasn't occurred.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Schools often issue bonds to cover large purchases. Plus,
| sometimes states/fed will toss them grants.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| It's interesting to see how different bond proposals are
| received by the public. In the more conservative areas
| I've lived, adding a penny to the sales tax to fund
| school bonds is pretty much always approved by the voters
| and renewals are likewise rubberstamped. In liberal
| areas, that's a much more difficult tax to get passed,
| mainly on the grounds that it is regressive. School bonds
| secured with increased property taxes tend to work in the
| reverse, with property tax increases being popular in
| liberal areas but opposed in conservative ones.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _This is a fairly standard reframing when your product has
| lower TCO but higher upfront costs._
|
| I'd say it's the opposite a lot of times. EVs are one such
| product. People will say, "sure I'm paying 20k more for the
| car, but I'll make it up in fuel savings and zero
| maintenance!" without ever calculating how much fuel and
| maintenance you'd _actually_ have to use to break even. Then,
| of course, there is the regulatory and temporal risk that
| energy costs _today_ aren 't what they might be down the
| road, and that there are some high-ticket items an EV can
| have fail itself.
|
| It's hardly ever a no-brainer, because the invisible hand
| tends to make it so.
|
| > _People have sold rooftop solar this way_
|
| So many companies have gone bust because of this.
| [deleted]
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| School buses are bought by spreadsheet literate people.
| Understanding lifetime cost is a job requirement of the kind
| of people who run bus fleets and most people are qualified to
| do their jobs and do them satisfactorily.
|
| This isn't a case where a good product isn't succeeding
| because "hurr durr the public is dumb". People have run the
| numbers. It just doesn't work, yet.
| cpwright wrote:
| I'm not sure why you would assume that the average school bus
| buyer can't do a spreadsheet. Our local suburban NY school
| district is fairly run-of-the mill, and has a budget of $84
| million with several million dollars of that being for
| transportation. We have our own busses and drivers, and they
| spend about a quarter million dollars a year on diesel fuel.
|
| The Superintendent for business affairs that has an MBA from
| Columbia and earns $231,000, and should clearly be able to
| handle a spreadsheet and then making the yearly powerpoint
| presentations.
| [deleted]
| mywittyname wrote:
| As much flak as people give "the government" for poor
| spending, there's actually a huge amount of auditing and
| checks in place for purchases by officials.
|
| There's no way a decision like this gets made without a
| several "independent assessments" happening as a CYA move.
| dijonman2 wrote:
| The administration of the Roslyn school district ripped
| off tax payers for years. While it was caught it took
| awhile to discover:
|
| https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/09/hugh-
| jackman-mo...
| splitstud wrote:
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| It was more a general point, and I did say 'perhaps', which
| was based on reading a headline that said "get EV busses
| for less than your monthly spend" rather than "EVs have
| lower TCO" which is the pitch I'd use for the more
| sophisticated buyer.
|
| But maybe in this case, the buyer needs that sales pitch
| not for themselves but for the people who would be angry if
| they did something financially sensible with future payoff.
| bend-or-end wrote:
| >That starts with phasing the purchase and deployment of
| electric school buses -- which still cost two to three times
| more than their diesel counterparts -- to take advantage of
| expected declines in cost over the coming years, McIntyre said.
|
| Sounds like the model is to be the first mover and being
| entrenched by the time it's profitable without a price hike
| joe_the_user wrote:
| A fair portion of school districts already contract their buses
| to First Student and similar bus companies. And if this company
| were to raise it's rates drastically, the districts could
| switch to First Student.
| aurizon wrote:
| 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?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > most will be under NDA's I expect?
|
| What are the odds that school districts are even legally
| allowed to sign such an NDA?
| aurizon wrote:
| Hard to say. Most contracts are public access files. but I am
| not sure if there are redactions for competitive reasons?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| To prove I'm an optimist, I'll say that most levels of
| government in the US must have transparency regulations
| that would prevent them from being bound by any kind of
| NDA. Otherwise the potential for corruption is pretty
| significant. Like I said, I'm an optimist.
|
| If you trust google search, my 2 minute research suggests
| the federal government explicitly disallows NDAs from
| binding them, and that in government overall NDAs are
| really rare. But that information is worth roughly how much
| it cost me to search for it.
| aurizon wrote:
| Yes, That fits. People need transparency as far as
| possible. For example, prison phone systems are onerous
| monopolies that oppress prisoners with enormous
| connection fees. Apparently the various prisons accept
| bids = the largest fee paid to the prison system is the
| winner - who then extract the max fees from inmates. The
| spectrum auction looks, on the face of it, to be a simple
| bidding process. Sadly the winners than pay billions to
| the feds and the winners then extort cell phone and
| internet users for fees - in the mean time, those
| billions that could have made US wideband universal and
| lower in cost are sucked into the political maw and
| wasted, oligarch style = USA lags behind dozens of
| countries due to this corruption.
| asdff wrote:
| Niche is already exploited. School boards have already been
| contracting out busing. Diesel/CNG contractors will just retool
| and charge more for green tax to school boards that want to
| pay.
| colincooke wrote:
| Due to the usage patterns of the bus fleet I wonder if they could
| be used for some vehicle to grid [1] power bank on
| weekends/during weekday downtime? It might shorten the lifetime
| of the batteries themselves but would be a nice additional
| revenue stream.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I ride on an electric bus a few times a week..
|
| https://tcatbus.com/its-electric-on-the-ithaca-commons/
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| 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.
| olivermarks wrote:
| 'Out of the roughly 500,000 school buses in the U.S., only about
| 0.2 percent -- just over 1,000 -- were electric as of the end of
| 2021'
|
| I can see EV buses being practical for future urban short
| distance pickup and drop off, but the longer haul rural routes,
| especially in cold climates, seem a long way off to the EV
| obsessed as a solution to anything. Huge subsidies and grants may
| seduce a few school boards but the reality is diesel loads
| replaced by EV are no where near ready for prime time.
|
| What could immediately help the local pollution aspects of EV
| heavy vehicles is some sort of tire particulate collection device
| to stop spread. Tire pollution is a huge problem that is probably
| more important than where energy is obtained from near or far
| https://www.greencarcongress.com/2020/03/20200308-emissionsa...
| rconti wrote:
| So what you're saying is, there's a huge market opportunity
| between "0.2%" and "everything other than longer haul routes in
| cold climates"?
| olivermarks wrote:
| That 'market' is already being served by existing vehicles.
| If we are interested in reducing pollution read the link I
| posted.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Average total route length is 75 miles per day. A Blue Bird
| electric bus, as a comparison point, has a range of 120 miles.
| So not all routes will be feasible with that bus, but a large
| number will be a perfect fit.
| tormock wrote:
| at 4 miles per gallon and skyrocketing gas prices, it doesn't
| surprise me....
| tigeba wrote:
| Just as an interesting note, our school district has switched the
| entire fleet (around 150) to CNG. This has supposedly reduced
| opex substantially over diesel. Also a huge reduction in
| particulates. Probably not as clean as EV but an improvement .
| Our district owns all their vehicles, but I believe this is not
| common.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| Busses as a Service from a venture-backed company in a
| ridiculously volatile market..
|
| What happens if/when they run out of funding?
|
| Having a business productivity app go out of business with an
| "amazing journey" post is irritating but there are 50 other apps
| that will take their place. Introducing "as a service" here where
| there are serious legal and even civil rights issues in play is
| radically different.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I mean, this is how aircraft and trains (and yes, even buses)
| get leased these days, particularly in the EU.
|
| Vehicle depreciation is a massive headache.
| octoberfranklin wrote:
| Those fleet lessors are not the manufacturers. If the lessor
| goes belly-up, you can lease the exact same model of
| plane/train/etc from one of their competitors.=
|
| If Boeing's financial stability depended on the sucess of one
| particular aircraft lessor, that would be a huge problem.
| mostly_harmless wrote:
| For those questioning the feasibility, 100% electric school buses
| are already on the road in Montreal. I see them frequently, and
| they seem to handle our crappy roads and winters fine.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Why would electric buses have more problems on winter roads
| than ICE buses?
| krallja wrote:
| It's cold in the winter.
| ajford wrote:
| 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.
| hedora wrote:
| 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 article).
| ajford wrote:
| 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....
| rootusrootus wrote:
| My Tesla definitely lost range in the cold, too. I don't
| think it's just that Chevy (LG, you mean) doesn't know
| how to make a good battery pack.
| wongarsu wrote:
| 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.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| 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 blends.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| 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?
| ajford wrote:
| Definitely something to consider. I wonder if there's
| some value to a secondary/supplemental seasonal battery
| that can be added for part of the year to handle the
| extra load.
|
| Would come down to whether the installation/removal (to
| lower the "dry" weight for the warm seasons) would be
| worth the energy savings of not hauling around the
| supplemental battery weight.
|
| Other options might be to use some kind of thermal mass
| for heating, perhaps a large heated mass or fluid tank?
| Not sure if there's any benefit there though beyond being
| able to swap out the fluid tank between runs faster than
| charging a battery.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| 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.
| graycat wrote:
| 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.
| mleonhard wrote:
| Zum is an electric schoolbus provider mentioned in the article.
| Their headquarters in near SF, in Redwood City. They're hiring
| engineers:
|
| https://www.ridezum.com/corporate-hq-hiring.html
|
| It looks like they're modernizing the whole student
| transportation process: apps for parents/drivers/school admins,
| dynamic routing, monitoring, and metrics. They claim 20%
| reduction in student commute times. That's a big quality of life
| improvement.
|
| I think the job would be quite interesting: geo, real-time,
| mobile, web, embedded, physical infrastructure, optimization,
| diverse user base, and many human factors. They're well-funded so
| probably pay decently.
|
| The office photos show a large open plan, which could be an
| acoustic hellscape, like Google SF Spear St. If the space has
| enough sound-absorbing panels and dividers and quiet floors then
| it could be ok. Can any of you comment on the work environment?
| andrewallbright wrote:
| I get a little suspicious. Are we comparing both solutions at
| scale, or just one at scale and the other at a smaller scale?
|
| The question boils down to: how many people are both systems
| currently moving. What would it take to build up the other system
| to operate at the first system's scale?
| MengerSponge wrote:
| 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 can consider.
|
| Unless, I suppose, you're intent on making the poor suffer.
| Diesel buses are very cost-effective at accomplishing that.
| fiftyfifty wrote:
| 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 parts etc. It's
| not difficult to imagine that cost alone adds at least $1
| million to our district's budget annually. In addition they
| have to have some percentage of extra buses because they are
| constantly rotating buses out for maintenance. They also have
| to have at least one extra bus and driver on standby every day
| because diesel buses breakdown regularly during a route and
| they have to go out with a second bus and pick up the kids and
| finish the route.
|
| So if a district can outsource part of that maintenance cost,
| and electric buses prove to be lower maintenance and more
| reliable that their diesel counterparts, there are significant
| savings to be had for the school districts.
| elihu wrote:
| > They also have to have at least one extra bus and driver on
| standby every day because diesel buses breakdown regularly
| during a route and they have to go out with a second bus and
| pick up the kids and finish the route.
|
| I distinctly remember being one of those kids that would have
| to be picked up in another bus every once in awhile. This was
| before cell phones, so the bus driver had to walk to the
| nearest house (this was out in the country) and ask to use
| the phone. I think we had a problem bus for a few months
| where this happened fairly regularly until they swapped it
| out for a different one.
|
| One time a passing vehicle kicked up a rock that took out the
| windshield. Nobody was seriously injured, but there was a
| fair bit of broken glass.
| tshaddox wrote:
| The buses in my small town all had radios (and quite a bit
| of chatter between drivers, as I recall). Were you in a
| district with very long distances or geography where that
| wouldn't have been feasible?
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| > 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.
| vdo wrote:
| I agree, sorry to be tangential, but school buses even have
| a whole community around converting them into rvs/homes,
| skoolies. The advice thrown around most often within this
| community trends toward picking diesel over gas, because
| diesel ones are very reliable when maintained. I always
| read it's better to get a pre-2004 diesel bus, because they
| have simpler, more mechanical parts. Diesel engines are
| really hyped among skoolie enthusiasts, though of course
| that is not to say that in e.g. fb groups, you don't hear
| horror stories of people stranded with a broke-down rig,
| it's usually lack of maintenance though. When maintained,
| they do last well past when school districts retire them--
| maybe survivorship bias, the ones that lasted to the end
| were more likely to keep lasting. My boyfriend has one such
| bus that was made the same year he was born (1989) and it
| took us on a 10-state roadtrip and was our home for over a
| year.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| He probably lived through the "Maxfarce" era in which the
| Navistar MaxForce diesels that everyone and their brother
| ran proved to be less reliable than the International 7.3
| IDIs they were replacing. To be clear, they weren't
| unreliable, they just had a tough act to follow.
| headmelted wrote:
| Diesels, in general, are notoriously unreliable.
|
| The only very selective myth I still hear repeated is that
| diesel engines are more durable now than they were, which
| isn't saying much, and skirts around _just how much_ else
| can and regularly does go wrong with a diesel-powered
| vehicle.
|
| Flywheel clutches are an expensive nightmare, and the
| vibration destroys manifolds, cams and exhausts in short
| order.
|
| That's only for the dirtiest diesels that aren't properly
| using DPFs or AdBlue (which if you're seriously considering
| running _school buses_ in 2022 and not using these, you're
| a disgrace). Both of these fail regularly and cost a small
| fortune to replace.
|
| There's an entire underground industry dedicated to
| removing the particulate filters from Diesels to improve
| fuel economy and reliability (because I guess some people
| just hate kids, who knows?).
|
| Electric vehicles have been around for well over a decade
| now, the data is back on them, and on the whole they are
| _astonishingly_ reliable compared to the ICE vehicles they
| are replacing. There's a lot of cables, sure, but they're
| flexible and aren't inherently moving parts.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| 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?
| drewcon wrote:
| Torque.
| screenbreakout wrote:
| I thought electric had better torque, ie acceleration...?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Not true. There are diesel engines that have warranties
| up to half a million miles.
|
| The old ones "run on physics"
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| worik wrote:
| > 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. Routine maintenance
| (the leak specifically was not routine but leaks
| generally are).
|
| My next car will be electric, I hope.
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "Most of the moving parts in an engine are well
| lubricated and thus don't fail very often."
|
| For all our family cars over last 30 years, 90% of repair
| cost was engine. Those oarts are under temperature,
| pressure and massive friction.
| polygloty wrote:
| 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.
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| WWLink wrote:
| 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.
| madduci wrote:
| Exactly. Take construction or military machinery as example
| : they are all running diesel. Who says that's not
| reliable? Probably after clocking more than 200.000 km and
| without maintenance. Motors on good shape and we'll
| maintained don't break down regularly
| rasz wrote:
| Cummins diesels, Toyota diesels, Kubota diesels, Yanmar
| diesels Yes definitely.
|
| US Detroit diesels? lol no.
| linksnapzz wrote:
| 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.
| lttlrck wrote:
| My daughter takes an electric bluebird to school. It has
| broken down numerous times this year, it has even stopped
| mid-route due to low battery (no idea who's to blame for
| that). Nevertheless it's nice to see progress and things will
| get better.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| My father was a business manager for a few different school
| corporations. In at least one of them, the busses were all
| used - none were purchased new. It just wasn't worth it, and
| much cheaper to simply have an extra bus. You needed the
| mechanics regardless just to maintain them. You needed an
| extra driver anyway as well because people get sick. These
| aren't really the costs you are leading folks to believe they
| are, but part of overall cost savings.
|
| One of the most wasteful (and expensive) things about school
| busses is that they are only used for school, which means
| they sit idle for much of the day. My father tried to work
| with at least one city to combine city busses with school
| busses - but state law (Indiana) forbid this since school
| busses were required by law to be the classic yellow with
| black markings.
|
| I'll also add that outsourcing isn't without challenges, and
| the employees are often worse off. (I don't remember as many
| specifics right now: My father, who died 9 or 10 years ago,
| generally worked with custodial and cafeteria outsourcing.)
| andrepd wrote:
| >One of the most wasteful (and expensive) things about
| school busses is that they are only used for school, which
| means they sit idle for much of the day.
|
| In my country's capital there is a plan of using a fleet of
| school mini-buses (as "taking kids to school" is among the
| top reasons why people say they still use a car for their
| daily commute), but also of putting these to work outside
| the narrow band of school start/end in other uses: taking
| old people to their doctors appointments, and commercial
| on-demand uberpool type transport.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| > I'll also add that outsourcing isn't without challenges,
| and the employees are often worse off. (I don't remember as
| many specifics right now: My father, who died 9 or 10 years
| ago, generally worked with custodial and cafeteria
| outsourcing.)
|
| (In the following post I use "you" rhetorically, not
| talking about Broken_Hippo directly.)
|
| Yeah. The body rental place makes it look like the
| killerest deal imaginable, like you get all the benefits of
| having human workers, minus actually having to deal with
| any human problems. No unions or strikes, if the body
| rental you're using gets organized it dies without the
| collateral damage to the renter, you just switch
| outsourcing unit. And there's tons of other human problems,
| and those human problems require other humans's help. They
| ought to get real, people are expensive, life is expensive,
| if something is more expensive than life we replace it with
| life.
|
| There is this deal you can get where you pay about half
| market wages, almost exactly half, and there's no
| unionization or anything. Just have to worry about
| emigration. Called slavery, these days people focus on the
| whipping and the coercion, they forget if you're a slave
| your master will be disgustingly cheap with the things you
| need he must provide for you, because he knows it's
| literally painful to ask.
|
| If you want something cheap and rather your money ends up
| spent on electricity than food, like who cares a joule's a
| joule, go, go and fire 100% of your workers and replace
| them all with machines. Sure to make a lot of money!
|
| What will you spend it on, alternating current or direct
| current? What voltage are you compatible with?
| hedora wrote:
| 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.
| ReaLNero wrote:
| 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.
| linksnapzz wrote:
| "Misleading and factually incorrect": the foundation of all
| public policy in CA.
| mtgx wrote:
| > 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, gasoline, diesel, etc. Because they see
| a direct correlation between the consumption of those things
| and them having to invest more in their national healthcare
| system out of their tax money.
|
| Meanwhile, in the US, since it's the citizens that pay out of
| pocket, that money still goes into the economy, so it's kind of
| all the same to the government whether or not they get sick or
| not. They may notice some correlation in the long-term, but the
| negative effects of these things are not nearly as urgent to
| the government.
| Amezarak wrote:
| 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.
| erosenbe0 wrote:
| Nope, about 1/3 of Americans have Medicaid or Medicare. At
| least 6% of all gdp is government dollars in healthcare,
| probably more.
| DFHippie wrote:
| The US spends about as much as peer nations on healthcare
| through taxes. Then it spends that much again in private
| expenses. In return it gets poorer health outcomes.
|
| https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-
| collection/health-...
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/237043/us-health-care-
| sp...
| lenkite wrote:
| Lots of nations have public health-care and millions of
| diesel motors.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Very true and also the reason for the exploding costs of the
| education system people complain about. In countries where
| universities run on public budgets you won't see exploding
| administrations and degree inflation because the state has a
| direct incentive to keep costs low rather than handing out
| loans that go to private institutions.
|
| Was honestly surprised when I saw that the rate of university
| graduation in the US is twice as high as it is here in
| Germany.
| stevekemp wrote:
| I guess if you're a year/two into a course in America you'd
| probably have $20,000 in debt to pay. If you have to pay it
| without graduating then you'd probably think you'd wasted
| the money - so you'd be likely to finish the degree to make
| sure you got "something" out of it.
|
| By contrast here in Finland education is free, so it's a
| lot easier for people to start courses, and if it didn't
| suit then drop out. Or move cities, and get a job.
|
| Where education is free I'd expect both more people to sign
| up to it, but also more people to drop out. Or take 10+
| years to eventually get their degree whilst continuing to
| work.
| DaltonCoffee wrote:
| Canadian has free healthcare and still has diesel
| public/school buses
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I really doubt this causation, for a few reasons.
|
| 1. Everyone gets sick and dies. Dying a bit earlier from
| diesel probably doesn't cost more than whatever you would
| have died from later.
|
| 2. These other countries also have government funded pension
| system. If people live longer that's an added expense! If you
| do the cynical math, government finances are best if people
| die of something cheap soon after they retire.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Consider that, even for two people who die at the same age,
| the one who is sick for many years before dying probably
| incurs more healthcare costs.
| stephen999 wrote:
| Huh? Most of Europe has socialized medicine and they have a
| ton more diesels and thus air pollution than the US.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Yes, that was a mistake. Diesel was promoted as lower C02
| than petrol engines, before the problems with particulates
| were well known. (1)
|
| This is of course changing now. (2)
|
| As noted in the second link, a factor is the "Volkswagen
| emissions scandal", AKA "Dieselgate" (3)
|
| 1) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41985715
|
| 2) https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-
| news/98747/d...
|
| 3)
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal
| asdff wrote:
| Do school districts still use diesel? CNG seems pretty popular
| these days.
| bluGill wrote:
| For city buses. Schools are mostly diesel from what I've
| seen. You need special infrastructure to fill CNG, which
| limits trips.
| luke2m wrote:
| 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
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Likely the CNG buses are purchased by wealthy districts and
| the less well off districts purchase the used diesel buses at
| a discount.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| (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.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| We can make power plants cleaner, and generally we do (but
| not nearly fast enough).
| sp332 wrote:
| It's much cleaner, even after accounting for losses in
| electricity transport and storage. Power plants are just much
| more efficient than mobile internal combustion engines.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Let's not forget the diesel emissions cheating scandal.
| Diesel engines are so amazingly difficult deal with from an
| emissions perspective that it's basically impossible to
| build one with an emissions system that doesn't require
| constant maintenance (filters, additives).
|
| Diesel emissions requirements for commercial vehicles are
| much more lenient for this reason.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| Yes because the coal burning is done at a central location
| with fairly advanced technology to capture dirty
| hydrocarbons. The tailpipe is spreading soot all over.
| [deleted]
| zamalek wrote:
| The thing is that we're going to burn coal no matter what.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| No, it is not more dirty than diesel emissions. Coal plants
| are stationary, so they can install _huge_ scrubbing
| apparatus. Diesels have to drag whatever cleanup mechanism
| they have installed with them, which is inherently limiting.
|
| Also, those coal plants aren't parked outside primary schools
| idling, and schoolkids aren't spending hours sitting around
| their smokestacks.
|
| Don't get me wrong: Coal is dirty as sin and radioactive as
| hell. Coal delenda est.
| kemiller wrote:
| 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.
| bsdetector wrote:
| 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 than an EV powered entirely by coal, and one getting
| >45 mpg is less polluting than an EV powered by natural
| gas. This does not include the battery at all, which makes
| sense as it is an independent consideration.
|
| This is a more honest way to present the information so
| individuals can make informed decisions for themselves
| among potential car purchases and so that people aren't
| fooled into thinking that all EVs are less polluting in all
| circumstances.
|
| 1 - https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions_sou
| rces....
| hedora wrote:
| There are many, many assumptions to such calculations.
| Here's PG&E's best guess at g CO2 / kWh based on time of
| day/year in California (page 2):
|
| https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/classic/fuels/
| lcf...
|
| If you only charge from noon to two in Q1, then use have
| zero marginal emissions per mile driven (this is the best
| case). If you only charge from 7-8pm you emit 142.06
| gCO2e/MJ.
|
| 1 megajoule = 0.2777777778 kilowatt-hour
|
| Converting gives us ~512 g CO2e per kWh.
|
| Car efficiency is measured in miles per kWh. 4 miles per
| kWh is doable (some cars are better, some worse). So,
| that's 128g CO2e per mile.
|
| 50 miles per gallon would be great. A gallon of gas emits
| 20 lbs CO2, or 0.4lbs per mile, which is 181 grams per
| mile.
|
| So, if you only charge at the worst possible time in
| California (basically forcing PG&E to use natural gas
| plants to charge your car), then a 50 mpg car is still
| 50% worse than a slightly larger EV.
|
| In practice, you charge during off peak hours. At night,
| emissions are about half worst case. During the day,
| they're 10% of worst case.
| judge2020 wrote:
| In the same vein as my sibling comment, the average is an
| average because not everyone drives a prius; tons of the
| US are dominated by trucks and SUVs. A more informed
| metric would be comparing EV vs ICE in cities based on
| those cities' percentage of electricity generation and
| average MPG based on the car population.
| derriz wrote:
| 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.
| brg wrote:
| Coal is used to establish a lower bound.
| derriz wrote:
| That makes little sense to me.
|
| Your analysis would result in the conclusion that
| charging an EV in France (90% carbon free electricity)
| causes the same amount of CO2 emissions as using one in
| South Africa (90% fossil fuel electricity).
|
| The expansion of EVs has coincided with a massive drop in
| coal electricity share and a massive increase in solar PV
| and wind share, globally. Assuming that expanding EVs are
| being powered by coal is odd to say the least. Especially
| given that (at least where I live) 70%+ of EV charging is
| done at home, mostly using off-peak electricity, which
| tends to have a much higher renewable share.
| skolsuper wrote:
| And maybe as the type of generation used for the marginal
| difference in energy required. If your country generates
| 90% of its electricity from hydroelectric and 10% from
| coal, you might still use coal for the comparison because
| hydroelectric power would be slow to add and the extra
| electricity for EVs would have to provided by coal
| derriz wrote:
| Assuming that it's more likely that marginal demand will
| be met by coal than by renewables makes no sense to me.
|
| Coal is rapidly been retired as a source of electricity
| generation - 85% of generation capacity being retired in
| 2022 will be coal[1] - and there hasn't been a new large
| coal plant built in the US for over a decade[2]. In
| Europe the amount of electricity being generated by coal
| is half of what it was at its peak.
|
| Meanwhile, renewables now make up about a 87% share of
| new electricity generation capacity in the the US[3].
| Europe is similar.
|
| Pricing the CO2 emissions cost of an EV using the
| dirtiest and fastest declining electricity source (coal)
| does not seem fair or honest to me.
|
| [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=50838
|
| [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-the-
| u-s-ever...
|
| [3]
| https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/solar/renewables-
| are-87...
| erosenbe0 wrote:
| This is an important point. I live in Illinois which is
| over 60% carbonless mainly through aging nuclear
| investments. It would be naively optimistic to suggest
| that marginal demand will be only 40% fossil fuel since
| the nuclear will not be replaced.
| mcv wrote:
| Not driving would mean smaller schools closer to home, and
| infrastructure that allows kids to ride their bike to
| school. It's completely doable, but it does require people
| to care about more than just cars.
| judge2020 wrote:
| America is actively against letting your kid out of your
| sight, with the fear of bad actors perpetuated by
| primetime news channels being the driving factor. The
| advent of only needing to part with your child when you
| drop them off at school, or watch them get on the bus,
| provides a framework for chain-of-custody and
| accountability if anything were to happen to the child.
| Unless you still allow car access for the parents worried
| about this, simply putting more schools within a mile or
| two of homes isn't going to work without parents being on
| board.
| watwut wrote:
| A school being a mile away with safe sidewalk tend to
| convince people the kid can go alone sooner.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It would significantly expand taxes, and that nearly
| always faces stiff opposition with voters. Especially
| when it is an open-ended increase.
| thethethethe wrote:
| > It would significantly expand taxes
|
| How exactly? Do you have any examples? Also, have you
| ever seen the price of car infrastructure? I would be
| willing to bet that denser walkable urban infrastructure
| projects are waaaaay cheaper than building and
| maintaining sprawling road, sewage, and power
| transmission networks. Sprawl is seriously draining the
| finances of many small cities and towns in the US.
| There's a whole book about it:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=strong+towns
|
| You could also just watch this smug video
| https://youtu.be/7IsMeKl-Sv0
| adamc wrote:
| Yeah, but it's not terribly likely that you could stop
| maintaining the sprawl, because it's already there.
| Certainly not quickly.
| thethethethe wrote:
| Yeah they are going to raise taxes to pay for it because
| that's all they can do. Which is the opposite of what OP
| said
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The only way you could sell it as an overall less
| expensive option would be with really elaborate studies
| that could convincingly tie the transportation effects to
| the design of the school system.
|
| But, when it comes to schools, fewer buildings means
| lower costs. We've been suffering this for years, there
| aren't anywhere near as many schools in my district as
| there were 30 or 40 years ago, even as the number of
| students go up. It's less expensive to consolidate the
| schools into a fewer number of locations and increase the
| capacity of the remaining locations.
|
| Ergo, going the other direction and creating more,
| smaller schools (each with their own infrastructure,
| custodians, some level of administration, etc) is going
| to require taxpayers to foot the bill. And not like a
| levy that only lasts for X years, but on an ongoing
| basis. Where I live (Oregon) there is _massive_
| resistance to new taxes. I do not think we are unique in
| that regard.
| fiftyfifty wrote:
| There's also the fact that coal power plants tend to be
| pretty far from heavily populated areas. Even if the US
| power grid were 100% coal (which it is not) this would
| still be a win as far as cleaner air goes for a significant
| portion of the population. There's a big difference between
| a coal burning power plant's emissions 50 miles away and a
| school bus idling right outside your house in terms of air
| quality. That's not even counting the air scrubbers and
| particulate capturing systems many coal power plants are
| required to have. The bottom line is the exhaust coming out
| of a coal burning power plant is much cleaner than even a
| brand new diesel school bus, let alone all the older buses
| still in service.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Plus coal is more expensive by LCOE than wind and solar,
| and has been for several years.
|
| That means electric companies are losing money running
| coal plants.
|
| They are racing to replace them with wind and solar and
| natural gas turbine, with the gas turbine slater for
| replacement with storage once that is cheap enough.
|
| Finally, with EVs and the electric grid, the power can be
| phased out centrally. Even if coal is used RIGHT NOW,
| once new power generation is available it is a seamless
| switchover for EVs.
|
| If in the long term some dirt cheap thorium reactor
| supplants solar and wind, EVs don't care where the
| electrons come from.
|
| Plus home solar, EVs doubling as home energy
| backup/storage, less components in the EV require less
| manufacturing, safer skateboard design, more internal
| space, lower center of gravity, regen breaking.
|
| Although the ideal transition is a 100 mile LFP PHEV for
| the next ten years. No range anxiety, 90% + of daily and
| weekend driving is all electric, maximizes use of current
| manufacturing capacity of batteries, regen breaking
| efficiency.
|
| Ten years ago (,ten years after the first Prius) we
| should have required all consumer passenger vehicles to
| be PHEV in a phased in manner.
|
| It's still not too late to do that.
| erosenbe0 wrote:
| The biggest source of particulate in my neighborhood as
| in most is recreational wood fires, where they allowed.
| The diesel schoolbus is nothing by comparison. Actually
| the fires are not allowed but people do it anyway and you
| need a drone to find them.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| downvotes to ask a question? what has HN become?
| Ourgon wrote:
| > Is it more dirty than diesel emissions? I have no idea, but
| old diesels were nasty.
|
| When comparing old diesels to old coal power plants the power
| plants win by being more efficient but both belch out a lot
| of pollution. They also have the advantage of burning coal, a
| fuel which is available in abundance and does not need as
| much processing as crude oil does to be used in diesel
| engines.
|
| When comparing old diesels to modern coal power plants this
| is true at an even higher level since those modern power
| plants filter out fly ash and are more efficient.
|
| When comparing modern diesels to old coal-fired power plants
| the diesels win by being less polluting and possibly on terms
| of efficiency.
|
| Modern diesels versus modern coal power plants goes to the
| power plants again since these win on terms of efficiency -
| especially when using combined heat & power - over the
| diesels.
| erosenbe0 wrote:
| I have found measuring in typical American neighborhoods
| that PM2.5 is raised the most when people burn wood for
| recreation or heat in the evening. It is much higher in the
| evening with a few neighborhood fire pits than during rush
| hour with a few diesel vehicles around.
|
| This is also when residents have asthma symptoms too. To be
| fair they are more likely to be home.
|
| So it is not cut and dry but if possible I would love to
| get rid of vehicle emissions as some particulate is too
| fine to measure.
| stephen999 wrote:
| So what? You can try and clean up both. Particulate is
| not the only pollutant either. NOx and ozone are also
| emitted from diesel cars.
| philjohn wrote:
| Electricity generation CAN be done cleanly, and should in the
| future continue to get greener.
|
| ICE cars will always give off pollution.
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