Cool, but is my math wrong or do these busses work out to around $600,000 each? Just cross checking here and they estimated electric busses do get quite expensive:...
Cool, but is my math wrong or do these busses work out to around $600,000 each?
School busses are not tractor trailers, but there are obvious similarities, and a new diesel semi tractor unit is a few hundred grand (usually $200k-$400k, though IIRC they can break half a...
School busses are not tractor trailers, but there are obvious similarities, and a new diesel semi tractor unit is a few hundred grand (usually $200k-$400k, though IIRC they can break half a million at the absolute highest end). Batteries are very expensive, so I definitely don't find that magnitude of cost surprising for a new battery electric school bus.
It would be interesting if someone could share a quote for a new diesel school bus for comparison.
Literature seems to assume full-length diesel bus costs of around $110k. Some media report costs around $130k to $150k. These are in line with commercial estimates of around $100k. Of course a...
Literature seems to assume full-length diesel bus costs of around $110k. Some media report costs around $130k to $150k. These are in line with commercial estimates of around $100k. Of course a used bus could be a quarter of that cost or less. Note that operational and maintenance costs of diesel are higher than electric.
The article says the federal government is providing $1 billion to purchase 2700 new buses. That's $370k/bus, in theory. The actual press release suggests that this amount will be spent on exactly...
The article says the federal government is providing $1 billion to purchase 2700 new buses. That's $370k/bus, in theory. The actual press release suggests that this amount will be spent on exactly this many buses. The Hill article refers to another $840 million but doesn't seem to make it clear that this, in total, is funding 5000 new buses. So that would be more like $368k/bus, which holds up. (To be precise, it's $1,840,429,000.00 for 5103 buses, or $360,656.28/bus). Biden's administration has already appropriated another $3 billion for even more zero-emission school buses.
As other users stated, it's possible that some of the costs are related to infrastructure, although typically I think that would be issued in separate grants if not explicitly stated. I don't see any discussion of charging infrastructure in the press release except a remark that the EPA has [educational] resources for schools about charging. From some of the links on this page, it seems like local districts are expected to pay for some of the upfront costs associated with charging infrastructure.
Edit: also, the government's definition of "clean buses" means "not diesel buses." It doesn't necessarily mean electric buses. Some purchase options don't require electrical charging infrastructure:
The Clean School Bus Program funds clean school buses, including electric buses, compressed natural gas, and propane buses that produce zero tailpipe emissions compared to their older diesel predecessors, with a requirement that at least half of the funding go toward zero-emitting school buses.
This is obviously a half-measure, but diesel is the fuel type most toxic to human health by far. Burning methane gas and propane still results in tailpipe emissions like CO2. Still, it's an improvement.
Yeah, I can believe $200k-$300k per bus. But for $600k, I hope some of that money is going into R&D and/or to bring a production line online. The next 3000 buses might be cheaper, and eventually...
Yeah, I can believe $200k-$300k per bus. But for $600k, I hope some of that money is going into R&D and/or to bring a production line online. The next 3000 buses might be cheaper, and eventually the demand for those would definitely justify tooling up an entire production line.
Recent busses I've seen have 3 point seatbelts, which I'm not personally used to but seems to have become more popular on a state level after that one big crash in Paramus. That said my local...
Recent busses I've seen have 3 point seatbelts, which I'm not personally used to but seems to have become more popular on a state level after that one big crash in Paramus.
That said my local school district still uses busses from the 80s and 90s for the most part.
As someone that has to take the bus to school for elementary school. The driver literally told us not to use the seat belts because of the fact that she had only one seat belt cutter for the event...
As someone that has to take the bus to school for elementary school. The driver literally told us not to use the seat belts because of the fact that she had only one seat belt cutter for the event of an crash. And this was during a bus safety thing that the school was required to go through for that grade. With that being said, the busses that I had to go on did had seat belts, mostly because the school district that I was in liked to replace the busses almost every year, dispute not being in a affluent district. So the ones that did not have seat belts would have been phased out.
Cool, but is my math wrong or do these busses work out to around $600,000 each?
Just cross checking here and they estimated electric busses do get quite expensive: https://www.gregorypoole.com/school-bus-costs/
I presume there's all the infrastructure in the school yard to charge them included in that 600k each though?
It’s crazy to think a single bus and the support for that breaks half a million in the first year. I would have never guessed anywhere close.
School busses are not tractor trailers, but there are obvious similarities, and a new diesel semi tractor unit is a few hundred grand (usually $200k-$400k, though IIRC they can break half a million at the absolute highest end). Batteries are very expensive, so I definitely don't find that magnitude of cost surprising for a new battery electric school bus.
It would be interesting if someone could share a quote for a new diesel school bus for comparison.
Literature seems to assume full-length diesel bus costs of around $110k. Some media report costs around $130k to $150k. These are in line with commercial estimates of around $100k. Of course a used bus could be a quarter of that cost or less. Note that operational and maintenance costs of diesel are higher than electric.
The article says the federal government is providing $1 billion to purchase 2700 new buses. That's $370k/bus, in theory. The actual press release suggests that this amount will be spent on exactly this many buses. The Hill article refers to another $840 million but doesn't seem to make it clear that this, in total, is funding 5000 new buses. So that would be more like $368k/bus, which holds up. (To be precise, it's $1,840,429,000.00 for 5103 buses, or $360,656.28/bus). Biden's administration has already appropriated another $3 billion for even more zero-emission school buses.
As other users stated, it's possible that some of the costs are related to infrastructure, although typically I think that would be issued in separate grants if not explicitly stated. I don't see any discussion of charging infrastructure in the press release except a remark that the EPA has [educational] resources for schools about charging. From some of the links on this page, it seems like local districts are expected to pay for some of the upfront costs associated with charging infrastructure.
Edit: also, the government's definition of "clean buses" means "not diesel buses." It doesn't necessarily mean electric buses. Some purchase options don't require electrical charging infrastructure:
This is obviously a half-measure, but diesel is the fuel type most toxic to human health by far. Burning methane gas and propane still results in tailpipe emissions like CO2. Still, it's an improvement.
Yeah, I can believe $200k-$300k per bus. But for $600k, I hope some of that money is going into R&D and/or to bring a production line online. The next 3000 buses might be cheaper, and eventually the demand for those would definitely justify tooling up an entire production line.
Will they have seat belts?
Recent busses I've seen have 3 point seatbelts, which I'm not personally used to but seems to have become more popular on a state level after that one big crash in Paramus.
That said my local school district still uses busses from the 80s and 90s for the most part.
As someone that has to take the bus to school for elementary school. The driver literally told us not to use the seat belts because of the fact that she had only one seat belt cutter for the event of an crash. And this was during a bus safety thing that the school was required to go through for that grade. With that being said, the busses that I had to go on did had seat belts, mostly because the school district that I was in liked to replace the busses almost every year, dispute not being in a affluent district. So the ones that did not have seat belts would have been phased out.