Thanks for sharing that. That’s an quite insightful article. So it sounds like it’s just costly in general at the moment. There’s also the transitional costs, but it sounds like once that transition takes place and more buses are ordered/produced, there will be more competition and lower costs longer term.

It’s nice we’re moving towards electric and suspect that in the aggregate the impact is a net positive. The article goes into things that aren’t so explicitly stated but easy to forget such as the fact that pollution has a cost. An example shared in the article:

> Their research cited a state comptroller’s report which found that asthma costs taxpayers $1.3 billion every year. “The number one cause of absenteeism in New York is asthma, much of which is related to air pollution,” said Julie Tighe, the league’s president.

Anyways, happy we’re making strides in this direction. We just need to start getting more serious about producing green energy now. Some of the deals to get hydro energy signed earlier this year by Hochul is a great start. Maybe these bus depots, can investigate the use of solar panels to further reduce costs? Not sure what that would look like but I’m guessing battery storage so that buses can charge at night.

It sucks that this article either intentionally or unintentionally did not go any further into investigating the reason these school buses were so costly. The headline and price tag will make people assume we’re wasting money or being overcharged when that doesn’t seem to be the case.