To be truly fossil fuel free, the rest of the transportation industry, semi-trucks, delivery vans and school buses (and airplanes and boats) also need to make the switch. There are currently about a half-million school buses in the US and only around 13,000 of them are electric.
A report from the Public Interest Research Group (PRIG) estimates that transitioning nationwide to all-electric school bus fleets would avert 5.3 million tons of greenhouse gas emission each year, the equivalent of the annual tailpipe and upstream emissions from about 600,000 Ford Explorers.
However, brand new electric buses aren’t the only option. Converting older ones, called “repowering” will be just as important as part of the electric vehicle (EV) transition.
Jason Torchinsky from The Autopian makes the case that buying all-new isn’t necessary and that conversions shouldn’t be an afterthought. School buses aren’t sophisticated vehicles, and they travel slowly on predetermined routes. They do a lot of stopping and starting, good for brake regeneration, and they end up at the same place they started.
“The way this makes sense is with used batteries and converting diesel buses as they get major mechanical issues. The requirements of a school bus can be easily served with battery packs no longer optimal for private car use, and conversion kits could be pretty readily created for the most common bus types. This is the ideal path, I think,” Torchinsky told Newsweek.
Repowers have been going on for a long time with new diesel, propane and compressed natural gas engines. The cost of converting electric is a fraction of a new electric bus. However, there is a sweet spot age for repowers, anywhere from 3 to 12 years old depending upon weather and geography, according to Unique Electric Solutions, a company that builds them. Blue Bird announced in August it would also offer repowers. A typical conversion costs between $125,000 and $175,000, depending on battery size.
The Dearborn school district in Michigan, with help from the government, bought new. It unveiled its first electric school bus on December 16. The plug-in Blue Bird All American RE bus can carry up to 84 passengers and can travel up to 120 miles on a single charge. An average bus route is a little over 30 miles according to an Society of Automotive Engineer’s study. A Dearborn Public Schools representative said that the electric bus will be rotated through routes to see where it performs the best.
The purchase of the bus was funded through 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 district will contribute about $100,000 toward the final cost. Dearborn Schools says that puts the total bill of the new bus similar to the purchase of a traditional bus.
“For the total cost of ownership with buses, specifically school buses, there has been a lot of money introduced into the market over the last couple of years, specifically with a Biden administration,” Gregory Genette, IHS senior research analyst told Newsweek. “That’s about a billion dollars a year through 2026. You could say it alleviates one of the big challenges, which is the cost right now.”
The Dearborn School District is one of 25 Michigan school districts receiving such grants.
The district is eligible for $7.1 million in funding to buy up to 18 additional electric school buses through the 2022 Clean School Bus Rebate program. Dearborn Public Schools was chosen because about 70 percent of the families in the district are low-income, who take longer rides and are disproportionately affected by the pollution from a tailpipe.
Schools can bid on the buses as part of $5 billion rebate over five years. Bids for electric buses for 2023 are now open.
Blue Bird says that customers typically spend about 14 cents a mile on energy costs for electric buses, compared to up to 49 cents per mile for traditional diesel buses.
Electric school bus advantages include lower maintenance costs with no oil or transmission fluid changes. The motor also has less moving parts than a traditional diesel engine. They also have better temperature control than a standard bus due to an electric heat pump. They’re quieter and there’s no need to source a new fuel like compressed natural gas. The buses can be recharged nightly while plugged in, or rotate through different routes if necessary.
One of the biggest drawbacks is range. The best of these buses, Navistar International’s IC Bus CE Series Electric goes up to 200 miles on a single charge. The Thomas Built Saf-T-Liner C2 Jouley can go up to 138 miles on a charge. That is plenty of range an average urban or suburban area, but less so in rural areas, and where buses are used to transport students to sporting events across districts.
They’re also more expensive than a traditional bus absent of government help. According to the BusBoss website they start at about twice the price of a diesel and go up from there. PIRG says that they cost around $395,000, including charging equipment.
“So, fundamentally, these absolutely do make sense, in the sense that it’s really an ideal application for an EV: set routes of known distances, long recharge times available between trips (the school day), stop-and-go, relatively low-speed operations– it’s all what EVs do best,” Jason Torchinsky, cofounder of The Autopian told Newsweek.
“Plus, the scale of school buses makes battery installation and potentially even swapping a snap,” he said.
