re: "Going through neighborhoods early in the morning, idling. EV is perfect for this application." except one thing we'll NEVER get rid of is the multiple horn blasts for the kids/parents who woke up late and are running behind. 😆
@@williamtoccijr9579 Q: wait…where the hell do they do that??? A: unfortunately between the borders of Canada and Mexico and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
It should also be used to do V2G after school hours (4pm to 9pm roughly) to put out more renewable energy to the grid to stop the duck curve from happening when solar power wanes. Different times needed state to state but let's make use of the massive amounts of batteries we will have!
I think the kids would rather be sent home early. Besides, most buses are not owned by a school district but a private company that bids for the business each year.
Sure, convert grid to battery and then convert battery to the school. Do you realize how silly that is? Somewhere in here ya gotta get power back in the bus so you can use it for it’s intended purpose. Don’t listen to sales people. Most of what they say is bs.
As a school bus driver myself, I CAN'T WAIT until electric buses become more popular. Just the noise and the hard time starting in the cold makes diesel buses tiring after a while. I deal with screaming kids all day I don't need a screaming engine too😂
Why are they hard to start?? Ours are all plugged in and have appropriate fuel for winter. Waiting to see what these do in miles of sub zero snow drifts and what they do when the bus gets stuck in sub zero weather and how long the kids can be kept warm.
@@rushfan9thcmd Mostly the older Internationals 🤷 they can be plugged in all they want they're still junk and always have problems, 2 of them blew motors this past year, both under 80k miles. And yes definitely wanna see how they handle colder climates
@@rushfan9thcmd Ahh, yeah we're board owned. We only have about 20 big buses and our oldest is a 2008 Thomas, but our 2012 Internationals are the issues, always have been since day one unfortunately lol
@@themarcherz8941 weve got about 30 used for the HS and regulated by our GS district. All park outdoors except for the WC buses over the winter. Given the roads are crap and even vibrating our newer buses, cant wait to see the pot holes start eating up money for bus repairs. "What money to fix the roads, it went into the green buses. Drive around the potholes". The best roads are the rarely used roads in the country. The route may not go down the good roads.
A real world 200 mile range school bus can probably meet 80% to 90% of school bus fleet range requirements. The remaining buses can remain diesel fueled for missions needing more extended distances such as field trips and other special uses. And maybe, a small selection of buses with an extended range battery pack or a range extender generator can be installed for use when needed. Say something in the 10 to 20 KW capacity area. Those already exist and are for all intents and purposes off the shelf items already available for bus size vehicles.
@@PantyDropper69 remember, each bus often runs 2 or 3 routes in the morning and two or three routes in the afternoon. Plus extra activities runs during or after school.
@@PantyDropper69 Not once you get away from urban and suburban areas. 200 miles is a much more realistic number for most Eastern and Midwestern states. I could see some routes in western states being even longer.
@@PantyDropper69 Longest route I drove was 120ish miles a day. It was an 8 hour day, Elem, Middle, and High with an activity route at the end. Never left the district, just covered a lot of ground.
Gas or diesel generator. Maybe we can stop this nonsense about getting rid of combustion engines and have generators in all the electric cars. Wouldn’t need to worry about range then.
@@zachswy You're right. About all the benefit you'd get would be to top off the 12 volt accessory battery so the driver could sit during downtime and listen to the radio or maybe power one of the fans.
Electric school buses make so much sense. Studies have shown that exposing children to diesel fumes results in an increase in life long health problems.
Lmao. How were the studies conducted? With the kids directly behind the tail pipe? Properly tuned and maintained school busses produce very little fumes. Some diesels actually produce less than many gassers of same displacement.
@@herbwheeler4470 by measuring the air quality inside the bus as compared to outside the bus. One article by the LA Times says, “Air inside the big, yellow buses used to shuttle children to and from school can contain up to 8.5 times more diesel exhaust than people typically breathe in smoggy California--enough to expose children to dangerous levels of cancer-causing soot, according to new research.”
@@jloop_2008 The device you sent that message on also has Cobalt in it, so you also need to get off your high horse. You are also forgetting about all the children suffering under corrupt regimes that make all their money selling oil. The difference is once burned, oil is gone but EV batteries can be recycled to retrieve 97% of their materials.
@@roger1818 hahaha I'm not the one claiming to be virtuous here. It's the so called "clean energy" libs like yourself. And just because Tesla claims that 97% of the batteries can be recycled, doesn't mean they can. That's like the auto makers claiming some cars get 40mpg, when in reality they don't. Maybe you should do some more homework before spouting off. Take a closer look at what they are doing with all the "clean energy" solar panels and batteries in Cali right now. But hey, at least it makes you feel good. 🤣
I think school busses would do great as EVs and would be a lot more pleasant over all they dont need super long range in most cases like he said 80mi a day and that is a decent avg so 200mi would actually cover that very well
@@graemejohnson9025 They do know that the Middle East has been made into a war zone over oil don't they? Or that the same regions producing cobalt are producing other conflict materials that are essential for oil-fueled cars as well?
@@graemejohnson9025 It took me all of 2 seconds to google and find out that LiFePO4 batteries (lithium iron phosphate as mentioned in the video) are cobalt-free.
A school bus is a nearly prefect candidate to be an EV. They can charge at a central location. They have a fixed known route. They run on a fuel ten times less expensive. The brakes will likely last many years thanks to regenerative braking. In fact any local fleet like USPS, UPS, Fedx Amazon will soon switch to EVs...
It will cost several million dollars just to set up a charging solution for these losers, not to mention the buses will end up costing $250,000 dollars a piece. Tax payers are not going to be happy having to foot this bill.
@@Webcrawler45 Even so, my local district has a few hundred buses scattered across a couple yards. At $1000 a charger that will multiply quickly. Plus there's the power draw, each yard is going to need a substation to provide all the kilowatts. I want electric buses to become a thing but the grid just isn't ready.
@@mustangecoboosthpp3869 personally, not subjecting my child to noxious diesel fumes is worth the extra cost. Obviously each school district will be able to crunch the numbers and determine the lifetime cost difference and see how they can fit that into their budget.
I love how the component test shelf is covered with “Danger: High Voltage” signs and orange high voltage cables, and Andre just reaches in to touch each of the components :D
Perfect EV application. I've been wondering when I'd start seeing these. Add some solar panels to the roofs, then in the off season (sunny summer time) the bus fleet can be a solar farm and feed power into the grid, and reduce electric costs for the school district.
On one of the other test drives, they stated the cost of a medium duty diesel truck was less than $100 for a cab & chassis and that the corresponding EV was 200 - 250% higher, or $200k - $250k. I would imagine the EV bus is in the same price range.
About 300k for an electric plus the charging station and wiring costs. A school district can buy about 3 conventional buses for 1 electric. The government is giving grants to bring the cost down to close to a conventional. I've taken a demo ride in a pre production IC electric bus, it's pretty nice but IC needs to work on squeaks and rattles now.
@@glenncourtney4876 yes kids, we charge with fossil fuel energy and they cost the school district a gazillion dollars. So, you will have to make campfires to keep warm.
@@glenncourtney4876 There are some pilot programs where local utilities are funding some of the buses and V2G charging infrastructure in exchange for using the buses as battery banks to help stabilize the local grid during the day and night and especially during the summer months.
The application is perfect for an electric chassis. The major downsides at this point are the up front cost of the busses and the huge infrastructure investment that will be required to charge any significant number of busses.
A common school bus with a diesel costs around $97,000, but EV schoolbuss cost $400,000, and then they need a $100,000 charger for the infrastructure. How does one get around spending 5x more, especially at a school. A fleet of schoolbuss would cost more than the school did to build, yet with a 10 year life.
@@Xander-dx6mw The answer is easy. You use the instruments of the federal government to subsidize the cost. In other words the money is extorted from the people. As far as I know this is legal.
these busses are well talked about up here in Canada during the cold weather testing and the customers who purchased them and with the LIFePO4 batteries being far safer than regular EV batteries used in cars, and not effected as much either in the winter months, the infrastructure is worth several $$$ , it does pay for itself and all busses are charged during off peak hours so the rate is 45% savings and is way cheaper than diesel fuel and it no longer has to be stored on site in tanks, $500k/year saved, these batteries will probably have a 20 yr service usage easily before they go onto be used as a future storage facility for a solar sight or operation, Great video Andre 👍
Roman, I really wish you would have discussed cost vs diesel. Then ROI and how long it would take a school district to recoup the costs of bus purchase. What does it cost to run the EV for a year vs Diesel, etc. Maybe a part 2?
According to Google the average school bus route distance is 73 miles, the implied efficiency of the bus is around .8 miles per kWh. For simplicity's sake we'll call that 100 kWh per day. The average cost of electricity in the US is 10.42 per kWh; $10.42 per day. I think the bus would do better than .8 kWh/mile and I pay 6 cents a kWh to charge my EV, so it may be as low as $5 a day There is really no maintenance to speak of, I have 110k on my Bolt and nothing other than wiper fluid, blades and tires. 315 kWh per bus is a hell of an emergency generator, plus with v2g the school can sell power to the local utility, say over a hot weekend when the buses are idle and the grid is strained. I think the most important factor though is not choking children with fumes (duh!) and showing our children the respect they deserve by being transported responsibly.
@@augsu That's all great info but what is the cost of the EVBus? My school district just installed Solar on the roofs of all buildings in the district so the cost to charge should be $0.00. I understand maintenance much lower but what about the cost of the bus itself? What is the life expectancy of the batteries and what is their replacement cost? Don't get me wrong I want to see diesel buses go away but not if it costs more to purchase and operate over their lifetime.
Notice non of the EV backers on these comment sections will touch the millions of dollars it will cost the tax payers just for the charging solution for all of a districts buses. That is on top of the $250,000 dollars per bus they are going to cost. This is a total loser for the tax payers.
@@ljoffe I would think there will be federal state and private grants for renewables for the children, I'm sure someone will think of the children. I couldn't imagine regretting switching to electric. Why would a school want to do vehicular maintenance, or deal with breakdowns? It will be a joke someday, what we're doing today.
I watched a dashcam of a police Tesla chasing a Mustang. The Tesla could easily keep up with the Mustang on public roads... until the charge got low and the officer had to hand the chase over to gas Explorers so he could find a place to charge.
Most of the schools around here have switch back to gasoline buses instead of diesel and the maintenance costs are much lower. EV would probably work well for all but some of the bigger rural districts where range might be an issue.
they have to do more suspension cameras with trucks and stuff... i love watching the body roll of the vehicle and seeing how the wheels stay in contact with the road. IMAGINE IF HE GOES OVER A SPEED BUMP WHILE THE OTHER GUY SITS IN THE BACK THO. THAT WOULD BE FUNNY
I think a school bus is a perfect platform for electrification. Lower center of gravity is awesome. Looking forward to to a ground up purpose built as an electric vehicle from the start, I am sure such a design will bring a myriad of innovations to the humble school bus. I probably will never drive a school bus full of kids again but I wouldn’t mind purchasing an electric bus as a family recreational vehicle!
I drove transit busses in graduate school, and we had some hybrid buses that had regenerative brakes. They were by far my favorites to drive -- you could almost do real one-pedal driving. They were so easy to drive smoothly.
Saw an article/headline that Montgomery County School District (Maryland) is going to be starting to change their bus fleet to EVs. I wonder what the "cabover" design would be like. Similar but still would be fun to see.. or the mini bus!!
My second biggest hope for electric school busses, is that I can get one from a district and convert into an electric SCHOOLIE RV!! That could be a kick for RV travel. 200 mile range, and space for travel in comfort once converted. Pipe dream, but a fun one!
What's especially nice about electric RVs is that every charger effectively becomes a home charger. No matter where it is or what's around it, you can always eat, sleep, and shower while the vehicle is charging. The only downside is that, at least a present, most public chargers have only car-sized parking spots, and an RV won't fit. But, someday, that could change.
LOL. An electric school bus will never replace the diesel school bus I drove for work. I was doing 240 miles a day one year. That gave me maybe 3 breaks of maybe 20 minutes during the day. I'd need 3 of those electric busses just to get me through the day!
Well, even if the electric school bus shown doesn't cover every single school bus route in existence, 200 miles of range is still sufficient for the vast majority of them. A bus route in the middle of the city doesn't need to be run with a bus capable of running a long route in rural North Dakota. And even for your route, I would not say "never". Battery technology is getting better and better each year. I'm sure, at some point, an electric school bus will come along that will handle your 240 mile route.
@@ZephodBeeblebrox That's a problem. The government is pushing EVs ...buses, cars, trucks without the power grid to charge them. Talk about putting the cart before the horse. Typical lack of common sense by politicians.
I wonder if they will eventually build these with hub motors and AWD for cold climates? I know a school bus is pretty capable in snow with a set of chains and a well trained driver but AWD is something that can be implemented easily with electric conversion
For the first 17 mins I thought it was 3D tracked in after effects until I seen there wasn't an exhaust pipe. After that I believed it. This is a cool idea I can't' wait for my school buses to have an electric powertrain.
This is so cool to see for so many ways. Kids in the future dont have to smell the smoke from the exhaust. Cheaper to run and maintain at the fleet at the depot . 😍😍😍😍😍
Electric school busses, mail trucks, police cars, final mile delivery trucks, all perfect examples of great electric vehicle usage. Lots of idle time, no need for long range, and less maintenance
Exactly. And in the very uncommon situations where those vehicles need a range greater than provided, gas and diesel powered vans, buses, and trucks can be used
Seems like the perfect application of electric vehicle technology. Slow stop and go driving. Just an observation so please don't get mad at the comment.
How much does this bus cost? How much does a comparable diesel bus cost? EV’s have much lower operating costs. What is the payback period in years? Kyle must know this because he needs that info to convince customers to switch. Wish you had asked and shown cost comparison details
Its not just the cost ofnthe vehicle (which surely is significant), but the charging infrastructure. To outfit a bus garage to handle the charging of a fleet will cost millions.
@@porcelainthunder2213 That is an issue, but it may not be as bad as it seems. First off, not every bus will need to completely charge the battery every night. If a full battery goes 200 miles and a particular route does only 40 miles in a day, simply recovering 20% of the battery each night is plenty. And, if you wanted to, you could probably get away with even less that that, since the normal school bus has weekends off. So, if the bus uses 20% of the battery each day and recovers 10% of the battery each night, the bus finishes the day with 80% battery on Monday, 70% on Tuesday, 60% on Wednesday, 50% on Thursday, and 40% on Friday, still with a huge cushion. Over the weekend, it slowly charges back to full again, and the bus is ready to go Monday morning with its battery back at 100%. If each bus only needs 30 kWh added to its battery overnight, rather than 300 kWh, the power load decreases significantly. 30 kW over 12 hours equates to just 2.5 kW per bus - even allowing for a 10% energy loss during charging, charging the bus at just 12 amps, 240 volts seems plenty. This is no more of a load on the electrical system than a medium-sized air conditioner. Of course, the charging system would have allow for a little bit more power than this - even if many bus routes do 40 miles per day, some will do 80 and need to charge a bit faster. And, you also have to have enough slack in the system so that if the power is out one night, you can make it up by putting a little more power into the bus batteries the next few nights, so the power outage doesn't impact students' ability to get to school. But, nevertheless, I don't think the bus base needs anywhere near the capacity to handle anywhere near charging every single bus from empty to full, every single night.
I like the idea of electric school buses. And, if you put charging ports at the schools, buses can also charge while waiting for school to let out. Bus almost always arrive 30 minutes prior to the release bell ringing. Buses can use that time to charge if they have charging ports at the schools. However, I would keep the propane and diesel buses around for school field trips and ball games that are a long distance. Normal bus routes are no problem for electric school buses but long distance trips, field trips and ball games, might be a challenge so I would keep the fuel buses around at least until charging times get shorter and battery ranges get better. The electric school buses are completely silent. That can be a problem for pedestrians because, they can't hear it. Same goes for students sitting on the couch waiting for the bus. We've all done it when we were little, sitting on the couch waiting for the bus. I did it when I was in school. And, the rumbling diesel engine noise was a dead give away that the bus had arrived. If you can miss the diesel engine noise, you can miss anything. But electric duses are completely silent so you're not going to have the diesel engine rumbling noise like you do with diesel buses. Very easy to miss the bus at that point. However, this is easily remedied. A diesel powered bus will have the loud rumbling noise that we all grew up with. You can generate that diesel engine noise with a sound chip and loud speaker. But, I believe that electric school buses are going to be a major game changer for student transportation.
I'm so excited to see this. I have made posts on Reddit that someone needs to retrofit old busses into electric, and put solar panels on the roof. I hope before I finish this video they mention if there is a solar roof option for rural use cases/off grid.
I think that's the best thing they can do with the school bus is not traveling as much as they do on their shorts trips to pick up the students it's a wonderful thing best thing they can come up with and it looks like it's a safer way to do
Electric school buses seem pretty cool, I can see into the future of them having led screens bill boards on the side of them with many different company advertisement's to help cover expenses.
thats not only a horrific dystopian idea, but also not safe whatsoever. School buses must be yellow for easy identification and visibility, and LED screens would consume power that could have been used as range for the vehicle. We should just increase funding to schools to cover expenses, not slap advertisements on buses.
lol have you seen the price of battery powered tool how much those extra batteries cost and how long they use them per day and how frequently you'll need to replace those batteries when using those tools that really are not meant for that kind of use? You're definitely not a landscape business owner and definitely aren't aware that many have already did that and went back to gas for the reasons I mentioned.
You know, as someone who drives a five ton all night in the winter in Canada I can really see the advantage of a bunch of weight right through the frame. That might really help the "empty lunch box in the wind" feeling I get sometimes.
Man when I was a kid I remember standing towards the back of the bus while waiting to get on. I would do that when its cold out side because that is where the engine and exhaust. It will keep me warm during those cold winter days. Now with this, that will suck.
What sucks is that now there’s a reason not to add air conditioning to school buses… Edit: just to be clear, I’ve never been on a school bus that has air conditioning (I’m aware they exist, but in eastern Massachusetts, I haven’t seen one). They all have heat, but none have ac. Or seatbelts
Back in the early 2000 for high school route we had a electric bus but we only rode it 3 times. One time it it broke down and we had to transfer over to a different bus.
315 kilowatts of battery? They should have said 315 kilowatt-hours. It’s embarrassing how many people are clueless about power and energy units, even supposed EV spokespeople.
A challenge in some of the school districts around me is the drivers park the busses near their homes overnight because the district is spread out. It would require designating spaces at the nearest school for charging, having the ability to download charging data to reimburse drivers, or install power meters at drivers' homes.
Modern Ev charging hardware can easily log how much is used. Paying drivers back to use their home power should be trivial. And based on the numbers à normal home charger should easily be able to fill a bus overnight.
@@mikecarter4572 most districts would do that. Not saying things are not possible, just challenges to overcome. With some schools on the other side of a mountain pass and some winter storms can delay getting out.
@@gelu88 300 kwh overnight, 5 days a week? That's a big residential load. In fact, over a 16 hour charge window that would require 80 amps, or half of a typical 200 amp service. Maybe they only need 200 kwh. That would require 55 amps which is much more reasonable, but still a big, long duration load to add on to a typical residence. Those amperage numbers assume a steady draw. But in fact to charge in 16 hours it would require more than that for some time, maybe 8 to 10 hours, and then taper for the next 6 to 8 hours so it is ready to go early to next morning.
WAY too expensive, heavy (probably requiring a suspension redesign) and more complex (2 systems to maintain) for a simple school bus. Also this defeats the purpose of eliminating the problem of in cabin exhaust levels and diesel costs.
This was great coverage. School buses have seemed like a great candidate for electrification to me for a while. The two things I kept waiting for during this video, were comparisons between ICE and EV School buses on up front cost and TCO. Are those numbers available?
I used to drive a country route in a bus and only drove 32 miles in the morning and 32 miles in the evening. An electric bus with 50 miles range would be perfect. Leave diesel busses for field trios.
Not sold. What is the highway speed? Normal around here is rough roads, dirt and crappy hardtop. Children on the bus for Over 90 minutes both to and from school. Is the bus running ac? How does that affect the batteries?
Even if it were only 30% of the required charge, schools are famously strapped for cash on a monthly basis. Anything that kept the bills down would be smiled upon I imagine.
I love that test bench, also love the idea of the new one. I was thinking that there is an advantage to having a full bus to test on, but the accessibility of having the components easily swappable is nice with the current setup. If it was me, in a dream world, you all would have a giant tube frame bus with all the same mounting points, but infinitely more accessible and you can see it all because it's a tubular frame.
So, the average school bus in the US drives 130km in one day and this electric school bus has the largest battery in the industry that can go 320km on a single charge. That means you can easily do two days without charging the bus at the bus depo and still have 30km left at the end of day. Of course, this will vary on the route taken. We can easily drop diesel buses that can increase the chances of cancer, especially in younger children who are more susceptible to harmful gases.
Never had seat belts on buss's I rode on. The aisles were wider. (in my day) The EV makers need to change the dumb fuel gauge icon from a fuel pump to an EV charging cable. And finally, he said we would be seeing these things coming everywhere? 🤣 Good luck with that. I rode a bus that was 20 years old and often being replaced with a "sub bus" because it was in constant need of repair instead of just buying a new, reliable, efficient buss. Guess what? That same bus is STILL taking kids around in my district 30 more years later. Budget in the districts here do NOT go into transportation. ;)
In my state buses must be retired and sold off at 10 years. Private companies can't carry students in a bus over that age too. EVs have less to break but the components are more specialized. My local district is flat broke but they'll have no choice but to modernize when the time comes.
@@bwofficial1776 re: "In my state buses must be retired and sold off at 10 years." exactly, there's a 10-12 year limit on how old School Buses can be. that's why whenever we see a big yellow School Bus with kids on it, it generally looks new (that's because it is). Buses are usually operated/replaced under the same "fleet" metrics as Class 8 Semis. and it's even more important that these maintenance schedules are adhered to when you consider the "cargo" you are transporting are KIDS, and this will become painfully evident once one discovers that the PARENTS of many of these kids are local business owners, government and state officials, Law Enforcement, etc (aw crap). yeah, something else not to overlook is these School Bus fleets are also subject to twice yearly DOT inspections, so if anyone is inclined to FORGET all the things I just mentioned, no worries, the DOT inspector will be more than happy to remind you with a citation.
Nobody seems to comment on cost and where the power to charge each bus comes from. Then the cost for each station, repair costs, new power grid system, cost to train mechanics if they can qualify to work on them and so much more. Economic nightmare.
I think is a great idea. Low mileage routes, central area to recharge. This will take time; my school district replaces two school buses per year. But clearly the future.
kW is is a measure of power, not energy. So if you say the bus has 315 kW, it's like saying it has 428 horsepower. I'm sure you mean the battery size is 315 kWh. That being said, I hope all school busses go electric. Great product.
I can’t understand why all of these EV companies skip using a a $300 heat pump in their vehicles. Keeping that bus warm with resistive heating in the north, could be as much power as driving itself. Also, on a bus making sure it’s super insulated and doing double pane windows would’ve been a huge addition to efficiency and range.
Did i miss the price? also, i noticed the bus my kids ride last year got upgraded and now uses a 7.3 godzilla motor. Looks like at least our district is already phasing out diesels.
The electrical grid is not here for school bus charging and wont be for a long time. Take every school bus parking lot. Now fully destroy it, wire in millions in chargers, and repour the parking lot. That's only the bus station, now the city has to upgrade service and so on.
Every one of our bus parking spots already has a electrical outlet to plug our busses into during winter months. We have plenty of power for upgrading to charging ports for each bus. They would be charging at night when power demand is lower. That might not be the same everywhere, but it is in many places. So to say it won't be for a long time?!?!? I do not know if that is fair.. It is the replacement cost of busses that will be the major stumbling block, not the infrastructure.
What's your longest field trip? These buses have a 200 mile range, that seems like a lot for school field trips. Im trying to imagine a trip where that wouldn't be enough. From my town a trip into Boston is about 100 miles roundtrip. It would even be possible to take them to Portland Maine, that's a hundred miles each way. Buses have to wait hours for the kids so you could do that at a CCS charger, for the Portland trip you would want to add about 50 miles which you could do in a couple of hours at a low speed, 62KW, charger. If they were taking the kids to New York City or DC then you would want a diesel so it would make sense for the bus company to keep one diesel in their fleet.
I live in the Mountain West. It’s easy to imagine a sporting event with a 400 mile round-trip. If you did that with an electric bus you would need planning to recharge while the event was going on. But, probably 90% of the miles the school buses drive fit that 80 mile round-trip range. If your school district had a fleet of 20 buses, make 16 or 18 of them electric and have 2 to 4 diesel busses for the long trips.
These can be charged at any fast charger. As long as one is designed to fit a bus, a driver could go 200 miles, charge back up in 2 hours or so and have power to go back.
With electric power, a conventional long nose school bus may soon be displaced with the cab forward models to gain additional maneuverability and capacity in a shorter package. The benefits of the conventional bus are no longer apparent.
I much prefer the conventional long nose over the cab forward designs as a driver - I have driven both. What you loose in forward visibility you gain in perceived safety of having the nose out front.
It may depend on where you at but where I live some disricts are still buying Flat Noes buses. Most of the electric buses where I live are Flat Noeses.
@@SomeDudeWithAnExitSign Yeah, some areas will hold on. Transit (flat nose) buses only account for 6% of school bus sales nationwide, I don't see that changing much with EV.
What is the negative health impact to the children and the drivers of these buses sitting on top of a huge battery putting out a large electromagnetic field, people are not stopping to think about the long term impacts to health.
315kwh battery- good lord that's a LOT of stored energy. that's literally about a thousand small space heaters all running for an hour. and the regen braking recaptures a bit of that back as well. these things would have to cost at least 3x what a normal gas powered bus costs. It's still worth it in the long term with significantly less maintenance costs, the cost of electricity by the day is MUCH lower than the cost of gasoline per day.
Yea, just not on the steering column.. I have used both setups where the cruise control is on the steering and flashers/door on the side panel. I much prefer the flashers/door on the steering column as that is used much more than cruise control - It is much safer for dropping and picking up.
I hadn’t thought about it until now but ev buses would have a tone of regen potential. They might have a cross section 2-4x as big as a CUV and their drag coefficient might be 40% higher but they have more than 7x the weight (when loaded) and will operate at slower speeds anyway.
Predictable routes. Lots of downtime. Stop and start. Going through neighborhoods early in the morning, idling. EV is perfect for this application.
re: "Going through neighborhoods early in the morning, idling. EV is perfect for this application." except one thing we'll NEVER get rid of is the multiple horn blasts for the kids/parents who woke up late and are running behind. 😆
I agree this is perfect application for an EV. This is something that should be done nationwide. Along with those seatbelts.
@@phillyphil1513 wait…where the hell do they do that???
@@williamtoccijr9579 Q: wait…where the hell do they do that??? A: unfortunately between the borders of Canada and Mexico and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
@@phillyphil1513 *excluding Virginia
I'm comforted in this day of leading edge engineering this "new" school bus still has all those rattles that I grew up with riding to school!
That much battery power could back feed schools with emergency power.
It should also be used to do V2G after school hours (4pm to 9pm roughly) to put out more renewable energy to the grid to stop the duck curve from happening when solar power wanes. Different times needed state to state but let's make use of the massive amounts of batteries we will have!
@@whattheschmidt They do offer Vehicle to Grid...
I think the kids would rather be sent home early. Besides, most buses are not owned by a school district but a private company that bids for the business each year.
Sure, convert grid to battery and then convert battery to the school.
Do you realize how silly that is? Somewhere in here ya gotta get power back in the bus so you can use it for it’s intended purpose.
Don’t listen to sales people. Most of what they say is bs.
@@davidmccarthy6061 70 percent of buses in the U.S. are owned by school districts.
As a school bus driver myself, I CAN'T WAIT until electric buses become more popular. Just the noise and the hard time starting in the cold makes diesel buses tiring after a while. I deal with screaming kids all day I don't need a screaming engine too😂
Why are they hard to start?? Ours are all plugged in and have appropriate fuel for winter. Waiting to see what these do in miles of sub zero snow drifts and what they do when the bus gets stuck in sub zero weather and how long the kids can be kept warm.
@@rushfan9thcmd Mostly the older Internationals 🤷 they can be plugged in all they want they're still junk and always have problems, 2 of them blew motors this past year, both under 80k miles. And yes definitely wanna see how they handle colder climates
@@themarcherz8941 our fleet that we lease are about 3 yrs old. We will get new ones after 2 more years.
@@rushfan9thcmd Ahh, yeah we're board owned. We only have about 20 big buses and our oldest is a 2008 Thomas, but our 2012 Internationals are the issues, always have been since day one unfortunately lol
@@themarcherz8941 weve got about 30 used for the HS and regulated by our GS district. All park outdoors except for the WC buses over the winter. Given the roads are crap and even vibrating our newer buses, cant wait to see the pot holes start eating up money for bus repairs. "What money to fix the roads, it went into the green buses. Drive around the potholes". The best roads are the rarely used roads in the country. The route may not go down the good roads.
A real world 200 mile range school bus can probably meet 80% to 90% of school bus fleet range requirements. The remaining buses can remain diesel fueled for missions needing more extended distances such as field trips and other special uses. And maybe, a small selection of buses with an extended range battery pack or a range extender generator can be installed for use when needed. Say something in the 10 to 20 KW capacity area. Those already exist and are for all intents and purposes off the shelf items already available for bus size vehicles.
200 mile range?
40 mile range would cover 95% of bus routes
@@PantyDropper69 remember, each bus often runs 2 or 3 routes in the morning and two or three routes in the afternoon. Plus extra activities runs during or after school.
@@PantyDropper69 Not once you get away from urban and suburban areas. 200 miles is a much more realistic number for most Eastern and Midwestern states. I could see some routes in western states being even longer.
@@PantyDropper69 Longest route I drove was 120ish miles a day. It was an 8 hour day, Elem, Middle, and High with an activity route at the end. Never left the district, just covered a lot of ground.
Gas or diesel generator. Maybe we can stop this nonsense about getting rid of combustion engines and have generators in all the electric cars. Wouldn’t need to worry about range then.
Glad to see the LiFePO4 battery chemistry in vehicle use. The chemistry is more safe and provides hundreds/thousands more charge cycles.
Ive seen some LiFePO4 battery cells punctured and still no fire. Super safe compared to manganese or cobalt formulas.
I was interested to see that too, I always thought that busses like this can use oddball stuff because of their size.
Seems like the perfect roof for supplimentary solar.
I think the school roof is better!
@@allterrainrandy2587 Yup. It would add thousands to the cost of the vehicle and add basically no range at all.
"add thousands to the cost of the vehicle and add basically no range at all" Tell that to Sonomotors.... RUclips experts, SMH...
@@zachswy You're right. About all the benefit you'd get would be to top off the 12 volt accessory battery so the driver could sit during downtime and listen to the radio or maybe power one of the fans.
@@nc3826 you underestimate how inefficient solar panels are.
Electric school buses make so much sense. Studies have shown that exposing children to diesel fumes results in an increase in life long health problems.
Lmao. How were the studies conducted? With the kids directly behind the tail pipe? Properly tuned and maintained school busses produce very little fumes. Some diesels actually produce less than many gassers of same displacement.
@@herbwheeler4470 by measuring the air quality inside the bus as compared to outside the bus. One article by the LA Times says, “Air inside the big, yellow buses used to shuttle children to and from school can contain up to 8.5 times more diesel exhaust than people typically breathe in smoggy California--enough to expose children to dangerous levels of cancer-causing soot, according to new research.”
Maybe you and your virtue should check on the children in Africa mining the materials for the batteries. But hey, as long as you don't see it right?
@@jloop_2008 The device you sent that message on also has Cobalt in it, so you also need to get off your high horse. You are also forgetting about all the children suffering under corrupt regimes that make all their money selling oil. The difference is once burned, oil is gone but EV batteries can be recycled to retrieve 97% of their materials.
@@roger1818 hahaha I'm not the one claiming to be virtuous here. It's the so called "clean energy" libs like yourself. And just because Tesla claims that 97% of the batteries can be recycled, doesn't mean they can. That's like the auto makers claiming some cars get 40mpg, when in reality they don't. Maybe you should do some more homework before spouting off. Take a closer look at what they are doing with all the "clean energy" solar panels and batteries in Cali right now. But hey, at least it makes you feel good. 🤣
I think school busses would do great as EVs and would be a lot more pleasant over all they dont need super long range in most cases like he said 80mi a day and that is a decent avg so 200mi would actually cover that very well
they do know that child slaves die, mining the cobalt for the batteries don't they?
@@graemejohnson9025 They do know that the Middle East has been made into a war zone over oil don't they? Or that the same regions producing cobalt are producing other conflict materials that are essential for oil-fueled cars as well?
@@graemejohnson9025 It took me all of 2 seconds to google and find out that LiFePO4 batteries (lithium iron phosphate as mentioned in the video) are cobalt-free.
@@TruckerGuy135 yes. But not in production..
@@graemejohnson9025 wdym
I worked at IC Bus for 5 years. I'm impressed by this bus and commend the company for this accomplishment.
As a school bus mechanic, I don't mind working on IC buses, except for those old MaxxForces we had several years ago..what a headache!😵
A school bus is a nearly prefect candidate to be an EV. They can charge at a central location. They have a fixed known route. They run on a fuel ten times less expensive. The brakes will likely last many years thanks to regenerative braking. In fact any local fleet like USPS, UPS, Fedx Amazon will soon switch to EVs...
It will cost several million dollars just to set up a charging solution for these losers, not to mention the buses will end up costing $250,000 dollars a piece. Tax payers are not going to be happy having to foot this bill.
@@mustangecoboosthpp3869 Simply not true. The average cost for adding a 240v charger is less than $1000.00 especially if you are adding a lot of them.
@@Webcrawler45 Even so, my local district has a few hundred buses scattered across a couple yards. At $1000 a charger that will multiply quickly. Plus there's the power draw, each yard is going to need a substation to provide all the kilowatts. I want electric buses to become a thing but the grid just isn't ready.
@@mustangecoboosthpp3869 personally, not subjecting my child to noxious diesel fumes is worth the extra cost.
Obviously each school district will be able to crunch the numbers and determine the lifetime cost difference and see how they can fit that into their budget.
@@mustangecoboosthpp3869 Should the taxpayers be happy with paying larger bills for fuel? The bus is a long-term investment.
They building these at Lion buses in St Jerome near me, 30min from Montreal, Canada. I love it 👍
No, they are building THESE at IC Bus.
I love how the component test shelf is covered with “Danger: High Voltage” signs and orange high voltage cables, and Andre just reaches in to touch each of the components :D
I was thinking the same thing, especially when I saw both of the manual service disconnects still installed.
Perfect EV application. I've been wondering when I'd start seeing these. Add some solar panels to the roofs, then in the off season (sunny summer time) the bus fleet can be a solar farm and feed power into the grid, and reduce electric costs for the school district.
spend 10 million to save 1000$ on power great thinking
On one of the other test drives, they stated the cost of a medium duty diesel truck was less than $100 for a cab & chassis and that the corresponding EV was 200 - 250% higher, or $200k - $250k. I would imagine the EV bus is in the same price range.
About 300k for an electric plus the charging station and wiring costs. A school district can buy about 3 conventional buses for 1 electric. The government is giving grants to bring the cost down to close to a conventional. I've taken a demo ride in a pre production IC electric bus, it's pretty nice but IC needs to work on squeaks and rattles now.
@@glenncourtney4876 yes kids, we charge with fossil fuel energy and they cost the school district a gazillion dollars. So, you will have to make campfires to keep warm.
@@glenncourtney4876 There are some pilot programs where local utilities are funding some of the buses and V2G charging infrastructure in exchange for using the buses as battery banks to help stabilize the local grid during the day and night and especially during the summer months.
The application is perfect for an electric chassis. The major downsides at this point are the up front cost of the busses and the huge infrastructure investment that will be required to charge any significant number of busses.
Politicians want to make schools into impenetrable fortresses
They can afford buses
A common school bus with a diesel costs around $97,000, but EV schoolbuss cost $400,000, and then they need a $100,000 charger for the infrastructure. How does one get around spending 5x more, especially at a school. A fleet of schoolbuss would cost more than the school did to build, yet with a 10 year life.
Don't worry Democrat eco weenies, higher property taxes will pay for all this virtue signaling.
@@Xander-dx6mw The answer is easy. You use the instruments of the federal government to subsidize the cost. In other words the money is extorted from the people. As far as I know this is legal.
these busses are well talked about up here in Canada during the cold weather testing and the customers who purchased them and with the LIFePO4 batteries being far safer than regular EV batteries used in cars, and not effected as much either in the winter months, the infrastructure is worth several $$$ , it does pay for itself and all busses are charged during off peak hours so the rate is 45% savings and is way cheaper than diesel fuel and it no longer has to be stored on site in tanks, $500k/year saved, these batteries will probably have a 20 yr service usage easily before they go onto be used as a future storage facility for a solar sight or operation,
Great video Andre 👍
Roman, I really wish you would have discussed cost vs diesel. Then ROI and how long it would take a school district to recoup the costs of bus purchase. What does it cost to run the EV for a year vs Diesel, etc. Maybe a part 2?
According to Google the average school bus route distance is 73 miles, the implied efficiency of the bus is around .8 miles per kWh. For simplicity's sake we'll call that 100 kWh per day. The average cost of electricity in the US is 10.42 per kWh; $10.42 per day. I think the bus would do better than .8 kWh/mile and I pay 6 cents a kWh to charge my EV, so it may be as low as $5 a day
There is really no maintenance to speak of, I have 110k on my Bolt and nothing other than wiper fluid, blades and tires.
315 kWh per bus is a hell of an emergency generator, plus with v2g the school can sell power to the local utility, say over a hot weekend when the buses are idle and the grid is strained.
I think the most important factor though is not choking children with fumes (duh!) and showing our children the respect they deserve by being transported responsibly.
@@augsu That's all great info but what is the cost of the EVBus? My school district just installed Solar on the roofs of all buildings in the district so the cost to charge should be $0.00. I understand maintenance much lower but what about the cost of the bus itself? What is the life expectancy of the batteries and what is their replacement cost?
Don't get me wrong I want to see diesel buses go away but not if it costs more to purchase and operate over their lifetime.
@@ljoffe Can solar support multiple vehicle full charging every day?
Notice non of the EV backers on these comment sections will touch the millions of dollars it will cost the tax payers just for the charging solution for all of a districts buses. That is on top of the $250,000 dollars per bus they are going to cost. This is a total loser for the tax payers.
@@ljoffe I would think there will be federal state and private grants for renewables for the children, I'm sure someone will think of the children. I couldn't imagine regretting switching to electric. Why would a school want to do vehicular maintenance, or deal with breakdowns? It will be a joke someday, what we're doing today.
I like the "batteries included" on the bus. That's funny!
Perfect application for EVs, also postal trucks and police cars etc.
I watched a dashcam of a police Tesla chasing a Mustang. The Tesla could easily keep up with the Mustang on public roads... until the charge got low and the officer had to hand the chase over to gas Explorers so he could find a place to charge.
all vehicles needed refueling, ie charging... and a high center of gravity Explorer, sucks for keeping up in a car chase...
garbage truck, is the ideal candidate ideal for electrification
They tried electric postal trucks before, it didn't work out well. But that was a long time ago.
Police cars would just flop horribly, probably won’t but idk
Most of the schools around here have switch back to gasoline buses instead of diesel and the maintenance costs are much lower. EV would probably work well for all but some of the bigger rural districts where range might be an issue.
they have to do more suspension cameras with trucks and stuff... i love watching the body roll of the vehicle and seeing how the wheels stay in contact with the road. IMAGINE IF HE GOES OVER A SPEED BUMP WHILE THE OTHER GUY SITS IN THE BACK THO. THAT WOULD BE FUNNY
I think a school bus is a perfect platform for electrification. Lower center of gravity is awesome. Looking forward to to a ground up purpose built as an electric vehicle from the start, I am sure such a design will bring a myriad of innovations to the humble school bus. I probably will never drive a school bus full of kids again but I wouldn’t mind purchasing an electric bus as a family recreational vehicle!
Finally someone talked about the cold effect on the e drive….10%loss isn’t that bad
I drove transit busses in graduate school, and we had some hybrid buses that had regenerative brakes. They were by far my favorites to drive -- you could almost do real one-pedal driving. They were so easy to drive smoothly.
That bus has a lot of features that I haven't seen on recent Thomas buses! Those steering wheel door buttons are pretty sweet.
Saw an article/headline that Montgomery County School District (Maryland) is going to be starting to change their bus fleet to EVs.
I wonder what the "cabover" design would be like. Similar but still would be fun to see.. or the mini bus!!
My second biggest hope for electric school busses, is that I can get one from a district and convert into an electric SCHOOLIE RV!! That could be a kick for RV travel. 200 mile range, and space for travel in comfort once converted. Pipe dream, but a fun one!
that would actually be pretty awesome
What's especially nice about electric RVs is that every charger effectively becomes a home charger. No matter where it is or what's around it, you can always eat, sleep, and shower while the vehicle is charging.
The only downside is that, at least a present, most public chargers have only car-sized parking spots, and an RV won't fit. But, someday, that could change.
Would love to see the first RV convert…..
I love how the battery pack underneath is all in Chinese writing lol
LOL. An electric school bus will never replace the diesel school bus I drove for work. I was doing 240 miles a day one year. That gave me maybe 3 breaks of maybe 20 minutes during the day. I'd need 3 of those electric busses just to get me through the day!
Well, even if the electric school bus shown doesn't cover every single school bus route in existence, 200 miles of range is still sufficient for the vast majority of them. A bus route in the middle of the city doesn't need to be run with a bus capable of running a long route in rural North Dakota.
And even for your route, I would not say "never". Battery technology is getting better and better each year. I'm sure, at some point, an electric school bus will come along that will handle your 240 mile route.
@@ab-tf5fl Where is all the electricity going to come from to power all these future electric vehicles?
@@ZephodBeeblebrox That's a problem. The government is pushing EVs ...buses, cars, trucks without the power grid to charge them. Talk about putting the cart before the horse. Typical lack of common sense by politicians.
@@ab-tf5fl Ye batteries burn better and better :D
I wonder if they will eventually build these with hub motors and AWD for cold climates? I know a school bus is pretty capable in snow with a set of chains and a well trained driver but AWD is something that can be implemented easily with electric conversion
This company talked about doing just that in the video. 10:11
I can't wait to see these in Chicago weather.
For the first 17 mins I thought it was 3D tracked in after effects until I seen there wasn't an exhaust pipe. After that I believed it. This is a cool idea I can't' wait for my school buses to have an electric powertrain.
This is so cool to see for so many ways. Kids in the future dont have to smell the smoke from the exhaust. Cheaper to run and maintain at the fleet at the depot . 😍😍😍😍😍
Electric school busses, mail trucks, police cars, final mile delivery trucks, all perfect examples of great electric vehicle usage.
Lots of idle time, no need for long range, and less maintenance
Exactly. And in the very uncommon situations where those vehicles need a range greater than provided, gas and diesel powered vans, buses, and trucks can be used
What’s in the frunk?
I'm glad they preserved the original squeaks and rattles instead of piping them in. Kids need that.
He said 315 kW but probably meant 315 kWh battery capacity. Nice large battery capacity!
Seems like the perfect application of electric vehicle technology. Slow stop and go driving. Just an observation so please don't get mad at the comment.
How much does this bus cost? How much does a comparable diesel bus cost? EV’s have much lower operating costs. What is the payback period in years? Kyle must know this because he needs that info to convince customers to switch. Wish you had asked and shown cost comparison details
Its not just the cost ofnthe vehicle (which surely is significant), but the charging infrastructure. To outfit a bus garage to handle the charging of a fleet will cost millions.
@@porcelainthunder2213
That is an issue, but it may not be as bad as it seems. First off, not every bus will need to completely charge the battery every night. If a full battery goes 200 miles and a particular route does only 40 miles in a day, simply recovering 20% of the battery each night is plenty.
And, if you wanted to, you could probably get away with even less that that, since the normal school bus has weekends off. So, if the bus uses 20% of the battery each day and recovers 10% of the battery each night, the bus finishes the day with 80% battery on Monday, 70% on Tuesday, 60% on Wednesday, 50% on Thursday, and 40% on Friday, still with a huge cushion. Over the weekend, it slowly charges back to full again, and the bus is ready to go Monday morning with its battery back at 100%.
If each bus only needs 30 kWh added to its battery overnight, rather than 300 kWh, the power load decreases significantly. 30 kW over 12 hours equates to just 2.5 kW per bus - even allowing for a 10% energy loss during charging, charging the bus at just 12 amps, 240 volts seems plenty. This is no more of a load on the electrical system than a medium-sized air conditioner.
Of course, the charging system would have allow for a little bit more power than this - even if many bus routes do 40 miles per day, some will do 80 and need to charge a bit faster. And, you also have to have enough slack in the system so that if the power is out one night, you can make it up by putting a little more power into the bus batteries the next few nights, so the power outage doesn't impact students' ability to get to school. But, nevertheless, I don't think the bus base needs anywhere near the capacity to handle anywhere near charging every single bus from empty to full, every single night.
In emergencies, the bus is a portable battery bank for hospitals and emergency sites.
Andre: I’ve never driven a bus 🚌 before
Also Andre: drives with one hand while turning and talking to someone behind him.
👍🏾
I like the idea of electric school buses. And, if you put charging ports at the schools, buses can also charge while waiting for school to let out. Bus almost always arrive 30 minutes prior to the release bell ringing. Buses can use that time to charge if they have charging ports at the schools. However, I would keep the propane and diesel buses around for school field trips and ball games that are a long distance. Normal bus routes are no problem for electric school buses but long distance trips, field trips and ball games, might be a challenge so I would keep the fuel buses around at least until charging times get shorter and battery ranges get better.
The electric school buses are completely silent. That can be a problem for pedestrians because, they can't hear it. Same goes for students sitting on the couch waiting for the bus. We've all done it when we were little, sitting on the couch waiting for the bus. I did it when I was in school. And, the rumbling diesel engine noise was a dead give away that the bus had arrived. If you can miss the diesel engine noise, you can miss anything. But electric duses are completely silent so you're not going to have the diesel engine rumbling noise like you do with diesel buses. Very easy to miss the bus at that point. However, this is easily remedied. A diesel powered bus will have the loud rumbling noise that we all grew up with. You can generate that diesel engine noise with a sound chip and loud speaker. But, I believe that electric school buses are going to be a major game changer for student transportation.
in 20 years the kids wont know the nostalgic atmosphere of 2 dozen idling diesels loading up with kids
Thanks, TFL, for the many EV videos. This makes me think EV vehicles are closer to reality than in the labs. Especially for larger trucks and busses.
I'm so excited to see this. I have made posts on Reddit that someone needs to retrofit old busses into electric, and put solar panels on the roof. I hope before I finish this video they mention if there is a solar roof option for rural use cases/off grid.
I think that's the best thing they can do with the school bus is not traveling as much as they do on their shorts trips to pick up the students it's a wonderful thing best thing they can come up with and it looks like it's a safer way to do
Electric school buses seem pretty cool, I can see into the future of them having led screens bill boards on the side of them with many different company advertisement's to help cover expenses.
thats not only a horrific dystopian idea, but also not safe whatsoever. School buses must be yellow for easy identification and visibility, and LED screens would consume power that could have been used as range for the vehicle. We should just increase funding to schools to cover expenses, not slap advertisements on buses.
My man totally forgot to look at the right hand switch panel for cruise control 😅😅 Still a great vid as usual!
Don't forget to partner up with museums, zoos, city parks to create bus access charge points at field trip destinations
I am excited for silent peaceful mornings. Now only if the landscapers would give up there 2 strokes for electric tools.
I work nights and I hate landscapers and their leaf blowers with a passion. Hope the fumes give them COPD.
lol have you seen the price of battery powered tool how much those extra batteries cost and how long they use them per day and how frequently you'll need to replace those batteries when using those tools that really are not meant for that kind of use? You're definitely not a landscape business owner and definitely aren't aware that many have already did that and went back to gas for the reasons I mentioned.
@@jhomrich89 nope I'm not in landscaping what so ever, I just want quiet mornings.
@@CedricParker then drive an empty bus!
You know, as someone who drives a five ton all night in the winter in Canada I can really see the advantage of a bunch of weight right through the frame. That might really help the "empty lunch box in the wind" feeling I get sometimes.
Man when I was a kid I remember standing towards the back of the bus while waiting to get on. I would do that when its cold out side because that is where the engine and exhaust. It will keep me warm during those cold winter days. Now with this, that will suck.
I like the camera pointing at the Chinese battery pack
What sucks is that now there’s a reason not to add air conditioning to school buses…
Edit: just to be clear, I’ve never been on a school bus that has air conditioning (I’m aware they exist, but in eastern Massachusetts, I haven’t seen one). They all have heat, but none have ac. Or seatbelts
Back in the early 2000 for high school route we had a electric bus but we only rode it 3 times. One time it it broke down and we had to transfer over to a different bus.
315 kilowatts of battery? They should have said 315 kilowatt-hours. It’s embarrassing how many people are clueless about power and energy units, even supposed EV spokespeople.
A challenge in some of the school districts around me is the drivers park the busses near their homes overnight because the district is spread out. It would require designating spaces at the nearest school for charging, having the ability to download charging data to reimburse drivers, or install power meters at drivers' homes.
Modern Ev charging hardware can easily log how much is used. Paying drivers back to use their home power should be trivial.
And based on the numbers à normal home charger should easily be able to fill a bus overnight.
I think that to with that most would be charging at the bus barn. In my county they're not allowed to be taken home
@@mikecarter4572 most districts would do that. Not saying things are not possible, just challenges to overcome. With some schools on the other side of a mountain pass and some winter storms can delay getting out.
@@gelu88 300 kwh overnight, 5 days a week? That's a big residential load. In fact, over a 16 hour charge window that would require 80 amps, or half of a typical 200 amp service. Maybe they only need 200 kwh. That would require 55 amps which is much more reasonable, but still a big, long duration load to add on to a typical residence. Those amperage numbers assume a steady draw. But in fact to charge in 16 hours it would require more than that for some time, maybe 8 to 10 hours, and then taper for the next 6 to 8 hours so it is ready to go early to next morning.
@@gelu88 Who the hell wants a school bus parked next to their home every night. Sorry but won't work.
They should do a Diesel electric. Have a diesel generator charge the battery. Trains use the same thing, & they’re rly efficient.
WAY too expensive, heavy (probably requiring a suspension redesign) and more complex (2 systems to maintain) for a simple school bus. Also this defeats the purpose of eliminating the problem of in cabin exhaust levels and diesel costs.
This was great coverage. School buses have seemed like a great candidate for electrification to me for a while. The two things I kept waiting for during this video, were comparisons between ICE and EV School buses on up front cost and TCO. Are those numbers available?
This is definitely a practical application for EV, I don't think for regular vehicles EV is the way, but for something like this, spot on.
I used to drive a country route in a bus and only drove 32 miles in the morning and 32 miles in the evening. An electric bus with 50 miles range would be perfect. Leave diesel busses for field trios.
Not sold. What is the highway speed? Normal around here is rough roads, dirt and crappy hardtop. Children on the bus for Over 90 minutes both to and from school. Is the bus running ac? How does that affect the batteries?
Any mention of V2G? Most electric school bus operators plan to use the downtime the fleet has to timeshift power back to the grid as profit.
With the volume of roof on a bus I would have thought solar on top would have been feasible to some degree
Even if it were only 30% of the required charge, schools are famously strapped for cash on a monthly basis. Anything that kept the bills down would be smiled upon I imagine.
Cost to benefit is not worth it. Put the solar panels on the ground or on top of buildings.
I love that test bench, also love the idea of the new one. I was thinking that there is an advantage to having a full bus to test on, but the accessibility of having the components easily swappable is nice with the current setup. If it was me, in a dream world, you all would have a giant tube frame bus with all the same mounting points, but infinitely more accessible and you can see it all because it's a tubular frame.
So, the average school bus in the US drives 130km in one day and this electric school bus has the largest battery in the industry that can go 320km on a single charge. That means you can easily do two days without charging the bus at the bus depo and still have 30km left at the end of day. Of course, this will vary on the route taken.
We can easily drop diesel buses that can increase the chances of cancer, especially in younger children who are more susceptible to harmful gases.
Never had seat belts on buss's I rode on. The aisles were wider. (in my day) The EV makers need to change the dumb fuel gauge icon from a fuel pump to an EV charging cable. And finally, he said we would be seeing these things coming everywhere? 🤣 Good luck with that. I rode a bus that was 20 years old and often being replaced with a "sub bus" because it was in constant need of repair instead of just buying a new, reliable, efficient buss. Guess what? That same bus is STILL taking kids around in my district 30 more years later. Budget in the districts here do NOT go into transportation. ;)
In my state buses must be retired and sold off at 10 years. Private companies can't carry students in a bus over that age too. EVs have less to break but the components are more specialized. My local district is flat broke but they'll have no choice but to modernize when the time comes.
@@bwofficial1776 re: "In my state buses must be retired and sold off at 10 years." exactly, there's a 10-12 year limit on how old School Buses can be. that's why whenever we see a big yellow School Bus with kids on it, it generally looks new (that's because it is). Buses are usually operated/replaced under the same "fleet" metrics as Class 8 Semis. and it's even more important that these maintenance schedules are adhered to when you consider the "cargo" you are transporting are KIDS, and this will become painfully evident once one discovers that the PARENTS of many of these kids are local business owners, government and state officials, Law Enforcement, etc (aw crap). yeah, something else not to overlook is these School Bus fleets are also subject to twice yearly DOT inspections, so if anyone is inclined to FORGET all the things I just mentioned, no worries, the DOT inspector will be more than happy to remind you with a citation.
need to get bused, to where they know how to spell "bused"
Nobody seems to comment on cost and where the power to charge each bus comes from. Then the cost for each station, repair costs, new power grid system, cost to train mechanics if they can qualify to work on them and so much more. Economic nightmare.
They are only going to show the positives and sadly none of the negatives. Same exact way it was when buses went from gasoline to diesel.
@@hippyhillbillie2958 Diesel is better than gas because it burns less.
My First Student location is looking to get these buses soon so this is good to look at for preview purposes
Until half a bus full of kids die due to ev battery failure which is usually way more spontaneous than if something happens with a diesel engine
But for the most part this would work perfectly for drivers who work split shifts. That's a huge savings in fuel and maintenance
Great video. I think every school district should be looking at these buses.
Ann Arbor, Michigan is about to do electric school buses
Yes, there is cruise control its the 2 switches to the left above the radio
I remember as a kid hating to ride the bus because the diesel smell made me car sick easier
This makes more sense since they are parked 50% of time and if it can get 200miles i think it is sufficient for 90% of city and suburban school needs
I think is a great idea. Low mileage routes, central area to recharge. This will take time; my school district replaces two school buses per year. But clearly the future.
kW is is a measure of power, not energy. So if you say the bus has 315 kW, it's like saying it has 428 horsepower. I'm sure you mean the battery size is 315 kWh. That being said, I hope all school busses go electric. Great product.
I can’t understand why all of these EV companies skip using a a $300 heat pump in their vehicles. Keeping that bus warm with resistive heating in the north, could be as much power as driving itself. Also, on a bus making sure it’s super insulated and doing double pane windows would’ve been a huge addition to efficiency and range.
cant't wait for the surplus auction in 10 years to buy one!
If driver has medical emergency regen may stop bus 🚌
12:18 thermal event what a nice way of saying explode We learned that from Samsung Note 7
School buses and mail trucks are some of the best applications for EVs.
Sure the guys a sales rep but he really knows his stuff... Respect
Did i miss the price? also, i noticed the bus my kids ride last year got upgraded and now uses a 7.3 godzilla motor. Looks like at least our district is already phasing out diesels.
Must be a Ford chassis! Because Navistar is using Power Solution International's 8.8 gas engine which out powers the Ford 7.3 considerably!
@@gmv0553 could be, i just heard a big block rumble and figured it was the godzilla.
They are not using 7.3s in school busses
@@mattbrew11 How do you know?
@@mattbrew11 Yes, they BB is.
The electrical grid is not here for school bus charging and wont be for a long time. Take every school bus parking lot. Now fully destroy it, wire in millions in chargers, and repour the parking lot. That's only the bus station, now the city has to upgrade service and so on.
Every one of our bus parking spots already has a electrical outlet to plug our busses into during winter months. We have plenty of power for upgrading to charging ports for each bus. They would be charging at night when power demand is lower. That might not be the same everywhere, but it is in many places. So to say it won't be for a long time?!?!? I do not know if that is fair.. It is the replacement cost of busses that will be the major stumbling block, not the infrastructure.
The IC bus you are riding is an IC CE, and I never saw a CE EV with a grille before.
I love IC bus they are the best in the industry and i love the design and the sound of the bus 😎
Cabin heater fuel? (on the cluster) Does this mean its burning dinosaurs to keep our kids warm? 🤣
I am a bus driver and for normal student pick up it makes sense but then when you have a 3hr one way field trip that’s when the diesel is still needed
What's your longest field trip? These buses have a 200 mile range, that seems like a lot for school field trips. Im trying to imagine a trip where that wouldn't be enough. From my town a trip into Boston is about 100 miles roundtrip. It would even be possible to take them to Portland Maine, that's a hundred miles each way. Buses have to wait hours for the kids so you could do that at a CCS charger, for the Portland trip you would want to add about 50 miles which you could do in a couple of hours at a low speed, 62KW, charger. If they were taking the kids to New York City or DC then you would want a diesel so it would make sense for the bus company to keep one diesel in their fleet.
I live in the Mountain West. It’s easy to imagine a sporting event with a 400 mile round-trip. If you did that with an electric bus you would need planning to recharge while the event was going on. But, probably 90% of the miles the school buses drive fit that 80 mile round-trip range. If your school district had a fleet of 20 buses, make 16 or 18 of them electric and have 2 to 4 diesel busses for the long trips.
These can be charged at any fast charger.
As long as one is designed to fit a bus, a driver could go 200 miles, charge back up in 2 hours or so and have power to go back.
With electric power, a conventional long nose school bus may soon be displaced with the cab forward models to gain additional maneuverability and capacity in a shorter package. The benefits of the conventional bus are no longer apparent.
It is actually going the other direction, conventionals are taking over right now, even with electric.
I much prefer the conventional long nose over the cab forward designs as a driver - I have driven both. What you loose in forward visibility you gain in perceived safety of having the nose out front.
It may depend on where you at but where I live some disricts are still buying Flat Noes buses. Most of the electric buses where I live are Flat Noeses.
@@SomeDudeWithAnExitSign Yeah, some areas will hold on. Transit (flat nose) buses only account for 6% of school bus sales nationwide, I don't see that changing much with EV.
@@SomeDudeWithAnExitSign "Noes" LOL You crack me up!
I see property taxes going up to buy EV bus for public schools
What is the negative health impact to the children and the drivers of these buses sitting on top of a huge battery putting out a large electromagnetic field, people are not stopping to think about the long term impacts to health.
None.
315kwh battery- good lord that's a LOT of stored energy. that's literally about a thousand small space heaters all running for an hour. and the regen braking recaptures a bit of that back as well. these things would have to cost at least 3x what a normal gas powered bus costs. It's still worth it in the long term with significantly less maintenance costs, the cost of electricity by the day is MUCH lower than the cost of gasoline per day.
Imagine charging some 30 buses at the same time.. 🤔
Solar panels would help with this
The bus DOES have cruise control, it’s just on the panel next to the gear shifter. The first switch on the 3rd row (above the radio) shown at 1:20.
Yea, just not on the steering column.. I have used both setups where the cruise control is on the steering and flashers/door on the side panel. I much prefer the flashers/door on the steering column as that is used much more than cruise control - It is much safer for dropping and picking up.
I hadn’t thought about it until now but ev buses would have a tone of regen potential. They might have a cross section 2-4x as big as a CUV and their drag coefficient might be 40% higher but they have more than 7x the weight (when loaded) and will operate at slower speeds anyway.
Too bad you couldn’t add solar panels to the roof to give the bus passive charging.