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aa043 t1_j0xkiyx wrote

"An electric school bus costs $350,000 to $450,000 — three to four times a traditional"

"free" that costs 3 to 4 times could end up costing even more as unexpected problems arise.

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j0xq26h wrote

Well the subsidies lower the cost for at least the first few vehicles. But that doesn't necessarily make it affordable.

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The bigger problem right now is the infrastructure and restructuring of how operations work.

i.e. lots of districts use buses during the day for schools, then in the evening for other things like sports, and even overnight for senior citizen activities. It's pointless to have separate vehicles for all of these tasks, especially when some school buses now are handicapped accessible. One vehicle, and just have different drivers since obviously you can't have someone drive 18hrs a day. It makes sense, it saves money. Some towns even use school buses for moving their employees between job sites. No point having a fleet of vans just for that task. Lots of these trips are quick. Having rarely used vehicles is a waste of money.

Same reasons towns love those garbage trucks that double as snow plows. One vehicle, multiple tasks. They're nice and heavy so they are good in big storms too.

But for an electric bus, you kinda need 2 vehicles for stuff like this. They can't be quickly gassed up. They need to sit and charge overnight. And charging facilities. And staff that are trained to service/inspect them. And until you do a complete fleet replacement, you need staff that can still service ICE vehicles. That's more duplication. You've also need supply chain for both.

This is a key reason why PA was keen on a big order of cars and replacing the whole fleet. Rather than do various orders/models. It saves them money long term having one model, one set of training for employees, you can use parts between them, swap them out for each other, etc. etc.

I'd predict you'll see more adoption in really rural places that provide minimal services before suburbs. The ones that own a dozen or less buses, only use them for school, and nothing more because the government provides no other services. Even rural distances are within range, and it's a perfect match.

But in urban/suburban areas, school buses are kind of abused as multi-purpose township vehicles that just so happen to also take kids to school.

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imaluckyduckie t1_j0zvnoe wrote

So you're saying you'd be cool with electric school buses only make sense if we put snow plows on them?

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_j100s9q wrote

This comment might be the dumbest Reddit comment of the day… including all the crypto bullshit subreddits.

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caroline_elly t1_j0y3dkj wrote

It's okay we can just shake the money tree, aka homeowners /s

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TotoItsCallMtrRacing t1_j10ni2x wrote

Maybe they are waiting to see what the cost analysis is before diving into it. Electric vehicles are less effiecient in cold weather, which consumes a good amount of our year. The regen breaking should help with city traffic.

I work for for a government agency and during the pandemic when we tried to get free hand sanitizer from the feds to give to the public, they sent us expired product. Due to the laws we had to pay to discard it due to the quantiy of it. Sometimes free isn't always better.

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