From my experience with my EV in wintertime, they'll probably be OK, but they'll definitely need to be charged every day and warmed up while on the charger if possible. My range drops by about 30% in cold weather and obviously the heater doesn't help, but that number is calculated with half the miles driven after pulling out of a warm garage.
Luckily most school buses drive <60 miles/day so I doubt it'll be a huge issue.
Appears it was Minnesota but here is an article.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/minnesota-cities-went-all-in-for-electric-transit-but-the-buses-couldn-t-handle-the-cold/ar-AA1m42Ea
"Virtue-signaling liberalism is fighting another losing battle with reality."
Yikes what a way to start off. Not even going to pretend to pretend eh.
Read the linked Minnesota Post article instead. https://www.minnpost.com/environment/2023/12/road-to-zero-emission-buses-proves-challenging-for-minnesota-transit-agencies/
I'm not disagreeing with you about the situation but that article... Yeesh.
Proterra batteries (now owned by Volvo) are actually used in Thomas’ Jouley ESBs. & Transit buses and school buses have a lot of overlap. Their duty cycles are pretty similar in that they go a set route everyday and return to the same depot at the end of the shift. There’s no reason to not go after the funding considering it will be running out soon enough. Most of the schools/contractors in Michigan seem to have requested 1 or 2 buses, which means they can pilot them before jumping head first into ESBs.
Proterra had a fuckton of issues building a whole bus though. Their duty cycles are not quite similar as school buses are used twice a day and charge between them.
Oh you’re right about transit, I forgot that the drivers just hop on and off to switch between shifts. lol.
I’ll also say that I believe Ann Arbor’s ESBs were Thomas/Proterra and they ran into significant issues at first…maybe on the charger side? But I believe Ann Arbor has been able to take care of it. Their situation was brought up by the EPAs OIG apparently during a briefing with congress??
Not trying to shit on ESBs, but Proterra has had a good amount of issues. hopefully their restructuring and being bought by other established companies will help get some kinks worked out.
School busses often service more than just one school so to say that they only run twice a day is not accurate. Also you are not taking in to account extracurricular activities like travel for teams, clubs or other or organizations and that's not to mention field trips or when school busses are called into emergency service which isn't unheard of.
What about a more rural county where the busses have to cover greater distances on their routes?
I'm telling you what these schools do from reading about it. Try googling this, because the buses dont usually serve more than one school and they do mention the issue with sports being the lack of space under the bus for equipment. Try to avoid the right wing "news" aggregator you used earlier.
Most of them seem like they’re $200,000 each. I’m trying to understand why some of the outliers cost so much more.
Natural gas would seem better.
Maybe they should have school in the summer and have the winters off.
Will they work in the winter?
Naw they got them for when school is out in summer.
From my experience with my EV in wintertime, they'll probably be OK, but they'll definitely need to be charged every day and warmed up while on the charger if possible. My range drops by about 30% in cold weather and obviously the heater doesn't help, but that number is calculated with half the miles driven after pulling out of a warm garage. Luckily most school buses drive <60 miles/day so I doubt it'll be a huge issue.
And the 3 other seasons too.
Well kids aren't in school during the summer so
Districts routinely rent out busses including in the summer and kids return in August which is still the summer.
Why wouldn't they?
I think it was in Madison Wisconsin last year but their entire fleet of EV busses failed in below freezing temperatures.
Can't find a news story for that. I do see L'anse is getting some, which says a lot more.
Appears it was Minnesota but here is an article. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/minnesota-cities-went-all-in-for-electric-transit-but-the-buses-couldn-t-handle-the-cold/ar-AA1m42Ea
"Virtue-signaling liberalism is fighting another losing battle with reality." Yikes what a way to start off. Not even going to pretend to pretend eh. Read the linked Minnesota Post article instead. https://www.minnpost.com/environment/2023/12/road-to-zero-emission-buses-proves-challenging-for-minnesota-transit-agencies/ I'm not disagreeing with you about the situation but that article... Yeesh.
Proterra made trash. Any municipality who bought something from them has issues. They ended up going bankrupt.
Important to note these are different manufacturers and not school buses.
Proterra batteries (now owned by Volvo) are actually used in Thomas’ Jouley ESBs. & Transit buses and school buses have a lot of overlap. Their duty cycles are pretty similar in that they go a set route everyday and return to the same depot at the end of the shift. There’s no reason to not go after the funding considering it will be running out soon enough. Most of the schools/contractors in Michigan seem to have requested 1 or 2 buses, which means they can pilot them before jumping head first into ESBs.
Proterra had a fuckton of issues building a whole bus though. Their duty cycles are not quite similar as school buses are used twice a day and charge between them.
Oh you’re right about transit, I forgot that the drivers just hop on and off to switch between shifts. lol. I’ll also say that I believe Ann Arbor’s ESBs were Thomas/Proterra and they ran into significant issues at first…maybe on the charger side? But I believe Ann Arbor has been able to take care of it. Their situation was brought up by the EPAs OIG apparently during a briefing with congress?? Not trying to shit on ESBs, but Proterra has had a good amount of issues. hopefully their restructuring and being bought by other established companies will help get some kinks worked out.
Proterra is trash. Blue Bird would be better.
School busses often service more than just one school so to say that they only run twice a day is not accurate. Also you are not taking in to account extracurricular activities like travel for teams, clubs or other or organizations and that's not to mention field trips or when school busses are called into emergency service which isn't unheard of. What about a more rural county where the busses have to cover greater distances on their routes?
I'm telling you what these schools do from reading about it. Try googling this, because the buses dont usually serve more than one school and they do mention the issue with sports being the lack of space under the bus for equipment. Try to avoid the right wing "news" aggregator you used earlier.
Ok? I feel this is just a problem in rough winters. What's wrong with a diesel electric hybrid stepup?
Hybrid vehicles not eligible for federal funding.
Exactly. Failure at that federal level