Last week, Michigan’s Dearborn Public Schools announced that it has picked up its first electric school bus and up to 18 more could be on the way. Why should you care? Electric school buses are a fantastic application of today’s electric vehicle technology. Here’s a reminder of what makes them so good and the one big downside.
Two years ago, one of my first articles for the German lighting site was about how school buses were the perfect application of the EV technology that we have access to today. And almost exactly two years on, my opinion hasn’t changed. The life of a school bus is one that happens to be great for the strength and limitations of today’s electric vehicles. Thus, it’s awesome to see electric school buses gradually take off around America.
School Districts Sweep Up Electric Buses
According to the World Resources Institute (WRI), there are about 500,000 school buses in the United States. Of that fleet, 12,720 of them are what WRI calls “committed electric school buses.” WRI says that it considers a bus “committed” when a district has been awarded the funding to purchase it, has already purchased it, it’s been delivered, or it’s already in service. In addition to that 12,720, Midwest Transit Equipment and SEA Electric said that they will convert 10,000 buses to EV power over the next five years. However, WRI doesn’t count these in the committed school bus number. Further crunching those numbers, WRI says that those 12,720 committed electric buses represent two to three percent of the total number of school buses in America. And the number of commitments jumped 10-fold since August 2021.
This is to say that America is falling in love with the electric school bus, and as of June 2022, there were 767 of them on American roads. Now, Dearborn, Michigan is adding its own buses to the count.
On December 15, Dearborn Public Schools unveiled the first of what will hopefully be many electric school buses. The district took delivery of its first Blue Bird All American RE Electric, a transit-style school bus that would normally house a Cummins diesel or CNG engine in its rear. Instead of internal combustion, these buses have a Cummins (formerly Efficient Drivetrains) PowerDrive 7000 drive system. This consists of a 315 HP electric motor.
That’s paired with two banks of seven Li-ION NMC/G batteries adding up to 155 kWh total. Depending on the drive cycle, driver behavior, and HVAC usage, Blue Bird says that this bus will go up to 120 miles between charges. These buses can be topped off in eight hours on a Level II charger, or in 3 hours on a fast-charging system.
The batteries, which you can see below, are rated for 3,000 charge cycles and are expected to last eight to ten years.
Those numbers seem low, and if they were stats for a car you might even hear someone say “range anxiety.” But for big school buses, this is just fine.
A 2013 National Renewable Energy Laboratory study examining 1,500 school bus driver shifts found that on average, school buses traveled 31.73 miles per shift, or on average 73.46 miles per day. This bus could handle that on a single charge, but realistically, a lot of electric school buses will charge between shifts. It’s even better when you consider that buses tend to follow set paths, can regenerate with a lot of stops, and usually end right back in the same place when their job is done. The average bus should handle the job without running out of juice, and the district should be able to feel confident in their buses doing the job for years.
And Blue Bird isn’t even offering the most miles on a single charge in a large bus, as the Thomas Built Saf-T-Liner C2 Jouley can go up to 138 miles on a charge and Navistar International’s IC Bus CE Series Electric goes up to 200 miles on a single charge. The International does it with a beefy 315-kWh battery and the Thomas has a 226 kWh battery onboard. Lion Electric (formerly known as Autobus Lion), a newer player in the bus world, has school buses that can go as far as 155 miles with a battery as large as 210 kWh.
Good For Kids, Too
Electric buses aren’t just perfect because their duty cycle fits neatly with today’s tech, they’re also better for everyone who has to be around them. Sure, there are weirdos like me who can’t get up in the morning unless there’s a Navistar DT466 firing up nearby, but a lot of people (maybe even most) don’t want to sniff diesel or gasoline fumes. And they don’t want their kids to do the same. WRI notes that 20 million children ride a bus to school, and 92 percent to 95 percent of those buses run on diesel.
There is no known safe level of diesel or gasoline exhaust exposure for the developing immune system of a child. WRI goes on to note that exposure to exhaust fumes can impact respiratory health as well as cognitive development. Even worse, students from low-income families are more likely to ride the bus, and thus are more likely to get exposed.
This is to say that electric buses aren’t just awesome on a technical level, but it’s good for your kids, too. Another added benefit is that there is no loud engine clattering away, making the bus ride a bit quieter.
The Challenge
Alright, so outside of cases where a bus needs to go long distances, EV school buses make so much sense. They do the job of getting kids safely to and from school without the noise, without the emissions, and while still running the same routes.
Unfortunately, there is a catch. According to the United States Department of Energy, an electric school bus costs up to $400,000. And according to a CNBC report, some districts are paying as high as $500,000 per bus. As the report notes, that can be as much as two or three times as expensive as buses powered by diesel or gasoline. Yep, you can still find buses running gasoline engines, and they’re touted as an option for budget-minded districts.
This is a potential problem for districts that don’t have huge budgets for bus fleets, but Dearborn’s unveiling explains how some districts are electrifying their fleets:
The first bus was funded with a mix of federal grant dollars and district funds. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency provided an initial grant of $300,000 through the American Rescue Plan Electric School Bus Rebate program. The program is intended to replace older diesel school buses with zero-emissions electric buses. The district will also contribute about $100,000 to the final cost of the first bus, making the total bill to Dearborn Schools similar to what a traditional school bus costs to buy.
Last month, the EPA announced the district would be eligible for $7.1 million in funding to buy up to 18 additional electric school buses through the 2022 Clean School Bus Rebate program. The EPA classified Dearborn Public Schools as a priority district since about 70 percent of the families in the district are low-income.
The grant is part of $1 billion the EPA is providing across the country this year to support the purchase of more electric school buses. The receiving districts can get up to $375,000 per bus purchased plus $20,000 to add charging infrastructure to support the buses. The funding is intended to help districts replace older, polluting buses with new zero-emission vehicles. Dearborn needs upgrades to its Transportation facilities to be able to charge the new electric buses.
States also have their own energy programs. For example, there’s a Thomas Saf-T-Liner C2 Jouley running for Tok Transportation in Tok Alaska, serving the Alaska Gateway School District. That bus is subjected to a torture test during normal operation as it has to get kids to school, even when outside temperatures are a -40 degree deep freeze. Yet, it does its job well considering its working conditions. That bus was $400,000, but an Alaska Energy Authority program reduced Tok’s cost to just $50,000. Illinois is using some of its Dieselgate money for electric buses.
In addition to these potential ways to pay for the buses, the bus manufacturers themselves tout lower running costs as a major benefit. Internal combustion engines require care like fluid and filter changes, maintenance to emissions equipment, and replacement of items like spark plugs, glow plugs, or coils. Of course, electric powertrains don’t have to worry about any of that. Thus, these buses are touted as being able to save a district money in the long run over internal combustion.
Currently, Dearborn has a fleet of 70 buses. Over time, it hopes to electrify more buses in this fleet to not just reduce emissions, but improve health and maybe save a little money on the way. For that, I hope Dearborn and every other school getting into EV buses are successful. My memories are filled with the sounds of GMC V8-powered conventional buses and those clackety International diesels. Perhaps the kids of the future won’t hear those sounds, but they won’t be sniffing those fumes like I did, either.
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Good use of the tech and still surprised it is taking so long to implement. The Amazon/Rivian trucks are on the roads more and more around me, would like to see the stats on those after a few months/years in terms of running costs.
I will miss the sweet turbo whistle one of the busses would make on my route as a kid.
I agree that the concept works well. The constant start stop and short total distance per day makes a lot of sense, and it would reduce the total energy used by a good amount.
But the technology isn’t ready. Paying triple the price tag to get an electric bus makes zero financial sense. No way they are getting an ROI out of that within the 8-10 year life span. And the EPA subsidizing buying them is outrageous.
Personally I would quite like to buy my own electric vehicle – but I can’t because the government is taking so much of my money to buy stupid electric busses with ):
I am really surprise that quick swap batteries on Buses are not yet a thing though. The cost of the multiple smaller batteries and swap gear has to be less than the install of a bunch of chargers all over a parking lot. and if planned right many of these batteries could be charged with standard 240V power that might already be available. https://youtu.be/hWlAf6P61LE
One of the big potential advantages of an ev school bus is providing grid stabilization- https://www.environmentalleader.com/2022/08/electric-school-buses-give-more-than-7-mwh-of-energy-to-grid/
Since the busses are parked most of the day, their utilization for this can be much higher than pretty much any other type of large vehicle. I saw a paper a while back that estimated that over the lifetime of the vehicle, the value of providing energy back to the grid during peak usage could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and is where the real monetary value of the vehicle is.
My only concern with this is that we won’t be able to hear the bus coming up the next street over which at times has been followed by “RUUUUNN!!!”
School buses are a great use case for electrification and I can’t wait to see them cruising to and from our local schools.
It’s baffling to me how many people around here (the Chicago suburbs) are irrationally opposed to our district going electric, the biggest complaint is “how many kids are going to die because they can’t hear them coming?!” A close 2nd is range anxiety/getting stranded in the winter.
I also have wondered why, beyond cost, do we still use the same heavy truck platform for school buses. They’re heavy, uncomfortable, and so freakin’ big! I have to think even a city bus platform would be better for this.
in the Chicago area, the biggest issues I see would be how the temperature affects the range. Since school is mostly held during colder months, this is a pretty big concern. still it would in most likely scenarios be fine. Slow moving with lots of stops to regen seems like the ideal situations for EV systems currently. Price though is of course an issue, up front for the bus as mentioned, but also infrastructure costs to install the many chargers they would need. Six 48KW level 2 chargers cost my company 180K for the added electrical wiring/transformer/switches. I see way more than six buses at just one bus depot near me.
Then there is the communities just outside Chicago. Rural routes are not as frequent on the bell curve, but they are often more miles than the range in ideal conditions and again in the midwest conditions are rarely ideal for maximum range. I am kind of surprised with Diesel electric locomotives being around for as long as they have been, more busses and semi’s have not adopted similar drive trains. unless maybe they are not efficient enough to cover the cost delta.
I can see in most small/large cities. Mine for example would work as there are few bus lots where these can sit.
We have city buses and garbage trucks running on natural gas, which is supplemented by capturing the waste products of the dump.
With how long a bus can wait until the kids get on, the schools could have a couple of chargers if the buses are running low.
I also see this as a step towards RVs which are also EVs (long way to go). Converting a city fleet is a good way to start. There are many in town vehicles which can be EVs for the sort distances they run.
This is indeed the perfect use case for an EV, but other than the price, there is another catch: battery fires. It’s not a question of if it will happen, but when it will happen.
Nobody will every put their kid on one of these after that.
School buses generally have like 6 emergency exits.
That’s certainly helpful in case of an accident.
Now imagine there’s a random, violent battery fire that burns down one of these buses, even if it’s empty and there is no accident.
You’d have some explaining to do to concerned moms.
My state, NH, faces exactly the same issue with 2 propane buses that blew up during a state inspection (!).
Now all the district’s propane-powered buses have been pulled from the fleet and this is just propane that we have 100+ years of experience with.
A reigniting lithium-battery fire can be even more intense.
Good start but wrong direction. BEVs aren’t clean, they are not emission free, just zero *local* emissions.
Imagine if instead they used renewable energy to produce hydrogen and power the fleet with that…
Depending on the power used in the area, you still reduce overall emissions (most significantly in areas using hydro, solar, wind, etc.), and hydrogen is still rather inefficient to produce.
Most of Chicago gets electricity from Nuclear power stations. Not that this method is waste free, but I would guess they would say it is emissions free to a point. I mean there is still the cradle to the grave emissions from mining, transport and waste recovery or storage. but it is still much cleaner than gasoline or diesel burning.
Transpo is a surprisingly large fraction of my school district’s budget. (Yours may be different.) If a large capex spend today by my district results in lower future Transpo expenses, my district can plow that into salaries and supplies.
Perhaps that’s why we’re seeing districts start EV test programs. We all want to know how EVs pencil out.
Maybe there is something wrong with me, but I always loved the smell of diesel exhaust when I walked behind a school bus.
There is something wrong with you…
I’ve been seeing a lot more new gas buses in my district. I think that the new Godzilla being designed for heavy applications and increasing emissions issues for diesel are making it a better deal than past gas engines.
My best friend is a bus driver so I’ll chip in here. Our county bought (through a grant) 2 EV buses to test in the fleet. They are almost universally hated. Charge times are awful, and also cannot be done at the county bus annex because the infrastructure isn’t there. Because they can’t charge at the annex, it’s not as simple as just charging it overnight. The buses have been relegated to spare bus duty, which seems like a horrendous waste of taxpayer dollars.
So they bought the buses without any thought of being able to charge them where they will normally be parked overnight??? That sounds more like a lack of planning than any real issues with the buses.
Someone at the district didn’t want electric buses, so the “lack of planning” was intentional.
If that’s true, someone risked not only their job, but their career, to pursue a personal anti-EV crusade. Sad but true that this wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
I would put my money, should I ever have any, on it being more typical jobsworth apathy; a ‘why should I spend my departmental resources/time/effort to support this’ situation rather than some wild-eyed fossil fuel believer drawing a line in the sand against the future.
Even if there’s a grant available for charging infrastructure, the site administrator might be adverse to any risk or disruption even if there’s no actual hit to their budget.
Institutional inertia is a hell of a thing.
On the other hand, there’s a significant cadre of fleet managers experiencing near-lethal levels of financial priapism at the thought of being able to cut fuel purchases, pump maintenance, and the safety/environmental costs of gas and diesel from their budgets and replace it with a line item item under ‘facilities’.
It perplexes me that they wouldn’t just add two standard, inexpensive AC chargers to their bus annex to support this test. In ideal conditions, the bus has a range of 150 miles. My home system can replenish 35kwh in 3 hrs. If my math is right, then one of these busses should be able to get a full charge in under 13 hrs. (which should be possible overnight and if needed, a midday top-up.)
I gotta say that Thomas Saf-T-Liner C2 Jouley is an awesome name which appeals to my inner 8yo. I hope I can pick one up in 15 years, repower it with a Mr (Cold) Fusion, and RV it.
But the 49 second 0-60 time won’t make me any friends
School buses… garbage trucks… postal cars… anything local and “last mile” should be first in line for EV conversion. Lots of stop & go & idling… range under 50 miles/day… no highway speeds in overdrive… this is where ICE are underperforming.
If these buses can one pedal drive, it makes it a lot quieter as well. We all know how loud air brakes are and its the last thing anyone wants to hear at 6am.
What is the estimated life for the electric buses? Because long life would seem to be the killer app. The school districts around here user up and replace their buses frequently.
School bus life varies. But first a confession: I’ve purchased four used school buses for… well that’s a story for another time. (To my knowledge, I’m not related to Mercedes.)
Like other states, some school districts in my state are wealthy and some are not. This is painting with a broad brush, but the wealthier districts sell their school buses with fewer miles and years since manufacture. The poor districts tend to maintain the hell out their buses and hang onto them for 20+ years. If the moving parts and upholstery are maintained properly, and rust isn’t an issue, 30 years is very attainable for a school bus.
EV school buses make a lot of sense for the reasons Mercedes mentioned and several others:
1) Shorter pre-trip inspections. It’s considered best practices — and for most employers a requirement — for drivers to spend a minimum of 30 minutes inspecting a CDL vehicle before and usually after a shift. The shortest pre-trip inspection list I saw was ~100 inspection items, and a school bus pre-trip list is longer due to safety equipment. Roughly a third of pre-trip inspections are spent in the engine compartment checking fluid levels, belt condition, and so on. I’m *guessing* the pre-trip inspection time for an EV bus is half that of ICE buses. Saving 15 – 30 minutes per driver per shift may not seem like much, but multiply that time for every EV driver throughout the year and it’ll add up.
2) Less maintenance. Fewer wear parts to stock. No buying antifreeze and motor oil by the barrel, and no fees to recycle these items.
Yes, EV buses are more expensive as an initial purchase. I would be interested if someone with EV bus experience could share the break-even point for a $500K EV bus.
From what I heard working for one of them:
– $300k for an EV bus
– $90k for a diesel bus
Over the average lifetime, total cost of ownership is pretty much the same.
The biggest issue is the upfront capital investment. Not many small operators have the cash on hand and struggle getting affordable financing.
But if you have an EV bus, you no longer need as many people doing maintenance right? That makes up for a pretty large cost.
Knox County R-1 in Missouri was the first district in the state to acquire an electric bus and they have a website where they log all of the data on operating costs:
https://sites.google.com/knoxr1.us/busproject/home/electric-school-bus-data/data
Good data. Surprising the cost-per-mile for EV is 1/4 that of ICE. Be interesting to see if the cost-per-mile difference holds up or widens over time as ICE wear item costs accumulate. Also be interesting to see if other districts experience similar cost differences.
As an EV car driver, one of the biggest challenges is cold weather states.
Many of those states can have smaller spread out populations, so the travel distance can increase, while in cold weather the range decreases.
Unless they are using a great battery insulation system with pre-heating, they are looking at ~30% range loss during the cold months. Honestly it’s a lot like a engine block heater, so if that is developed, it would greatly help.
Is that a problem though? According to the article, the bus is rated for 120 miles of range and the average bus route is 32 miles, which means even if you lose 50% of your range you’re still more than fine. Assuming they recharge during the day and overnight when not in use the loss of range due to cold weather is a complete non-issue.
Of course, that 32 miles as an average does mean there are routes longer than that, but it also means there are a lot of routes shorter than that which are prime candidates for EV. We’re not talking about a one-car household like we often do with EV cars, a district can have EV buses for the routes where they make sense and keep a few diesels around for the longer trips. That’s still a huge win environmentally.
Also bear in mind a bus doesn’t just do its route and head back to base. My district has four schools, two elementary, a middle school and a high school. That’s 8 trips a day for every bus.
I have always said that tiny cars were the worst use for electric motors. Where the big savings in pollution and fuel economy improvement is in large, heavy vehicles. Busses, trucks, etc. they also lend themselves to electric drivetrains better. They can easily carry large battery packs. School busses, busses in general, garbage trucks, all the nasty, noisy, particulate spewing giants. Absolutely the best use for battery power right now. Great article!
Keep in mind that BEV school buses don’t require the same crash safety testing that BEV passenger cars do. I worked at a BEV school bus maker and they were just beta testing their product on school children. People would come up with something in CAD, have a shop fabricate it, and install it on a school bus without any of the 2-3 years of development that we apply to components in the auto industry. It was legal and very questionable. Silicone Valley engineers shouldn’t be allowed to produce products responsible for keeping children safe…
As someone who is always complaining that EVs are not ready for prime time yet except for a few use cases, I agree completely that *this* is one of those use cases, along with garbage trucks, mail trucks, etc. Any of these multi-stop, predictable-route applications is one of the use cases for the current technology. I saw this story on the local news (I’m in the Detroit area) a couple of days ago and even though we’re in a cold part of the country during winter, these buses should be able to handle the routes with charging between shifts.
Dont want to rain on your battery but you guys are missing on the whole Electric/solar collapse.
1. The main storage battery company for solar is getting sued for defective storage.
2. California just passed a law that energy companies are only paying 8 cents instead of 30 cents for power sent back to the grid. And you cant store it because the batteries are failures
3. I used to work briefly with a county transportation company with a union work force. Great company awesome union drivers they refused to drive the EV Buses because you dont get half the range.
4 the entire east coast is sueing the solar companies not just customers the Democrat Attorney Generals are sueing.
5. The BBB has every solar company on a c grade.
6. Did I mention California gutted and screwed their solar rebate programs?
ICE ICE BABY!!!!
Solyndra. One of Obama’s cash cow pet projects. Failed before it could even produce product. Made a lot of it’s political supporters millions in taxpayer’s money.
Solar power is snake oil.
What battery company is getting sued? I hadn’t heard about that.
This is really cool.
Perfect timing on this article for me! I left FCA/Stellantis gasoline engine calibration a few months back and now work for one of the named companies on electric busses.
Please repeat with me: Garbage trucks, garbage trucks, garbage trucks…
Do it now.
OH yes! That’s another great use!
Gotcha covered:
https://youtu.be/lAsNQwjXDP4
Perhaps EV garbage truck use will depend on the operator and the local logistics. In areas I lived back east, I noticed the route trucks would run to the landfill themselves. In the west where I live now, the route trucks drop at a transfer station. Sorting occurs at the station, and the landfill-destined material is hauled using semis.
Our local operator keeps the route trucks “10-foot clean,” meaning I’m not curious enough to get any closer to inspect. I doubt my local garbage trucks are any cleaner or dirtier than any other CDL vehicles in my area.
This is an idea that doesn’t work everywhere – you certainly gave a good example of that – but does indeed work in some places and that’s basically the thing with the expansion of EV technology for now, in the early stages of widespread adoption: it will work best under specific conditions. Now, because there’s places that do not meet those conditions, that’s not a reason to write out an idea altogether. It can still be applied in places that make sense, and expand to other places as the tech improves.
We have some electric garbage trucks in my home town. A couple big ones, and a small fleet of low-speed EV mini trucks that work wonders in collecting trash around the 1000+ year old streets in some parts of town. I also happen to live right in the confluence of several garbage collection routes and it does make a difference when the truck that parks right under my studio window collecting trash is one of the EVs. Much better than a 20-year old Diesel engine idling right outside, plumes of black smoke wafting in. So yeah, while it doesn’t make sense in some places, it does in others (maintenance costs are reportedly much lower with these trucks, and I remember reading somewhere that corrosion/durability issues would be less prevalent because of the use of composite materials and all sorts of other stuff that was specifically engineered to make these trucks viable).
Heavy duty machinery is responsible for a large share of automotive emissions, but we, individual citizens, still ended up with the burden of early EV adoption. I’m not a fan of a 100% EV future, I’d much rather see a diversifying of propulsion technologies (including hydrogen and synthetic fuels, but also more diverse battery tech within EVs, because I don’t love the idea of jumping from fossil fuel dependence to lithium dependence) and I even believe that we could keep ICEs in production with far less environmental impact by transitioning to LPG. Pretty much every single ICE on the road right now could be a more economical and environmental-friendly version of itself, and this goes for the overwhelming majority of cars built in the last 3 decades or so.
Or you could be like St. Louis, and not only have landfills not that far away in Bridgeton, where you have an underground chemical fire encroaching on nuclear waste. Not to mention nuclear poisoned Coldwater Creek, which while I am near it, I am way above it so I don’t have to worry. There is a high incidence of people dying young of nuclear waste related cancer strangely enough. Fortunately for me, I didn’t grow up here playing in the creek.
Long winded way of saying I think electric trash trucks would work here.
Great, informative article as usual. By the way, why is it called the “German lighting site”?
When this first launched they tried to find ways to refer to Jalopnik without actually mentioning Jalopnik (Jello Picnic was my favorite). Anyways, there’s a german website that sells lights that kinda resembles the Jalopnik name so that’s why it’s called the “german lighting site”.
Unfortunately I’ve forgotten the name of that site and trying to search this site now for “german lighting site” returns literally every article it seems ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
10001010 nailed it on the head! I suppose it’s our inside joke because we found a site that sells lights and its name is rather close to Jalopnik. Gah, I’ll have to ask David because the name is escaping my Red Bull-powered Monday brain,
Pretty sure it was Jenoptik, named after the city it’s headquartered in – Jena, Germany. 🙂
http://www.glpnordic.com/ ???
My search term:
j german lighting
First response.
Totally a perfect use case, and a much much better use of batteries than EV passenger cars and trucks (mostly).
Plus, the V2G / battery backup / arbitrage potential seems really great as well (once that gets figured out better)!