You Asked, We Answer: Electric School Bus Expanded Q&A
At the July AMPED webinar our panelists shared first-hand experiences with electric school bus funding and early adoption, and the questions kept poring in! Come get deep in the details with us as we walk through more of your questions about getting started with electric school buses.
Big thanks to our three panelists: Jeremy Johnston, Director of Sales for New York Bus Sales LLC and School Lines CT Inc., Elizabeth Fox, Transportation Supervisor for Ithaca City Schools, and Matthew J. Helmbold, Transportation Supervisor for Gates Chili Central Schools.
How does weather extreme cold impact the EV battery?
We haven’t noticed a major difference. The chargers are constantly maintaining the temperatures of the batteries on our buses, even though it’s cold out. It’s not like the batteries are going out frozen. In the winter, you’re also running your heaters on the bus, but the mileage didn’t drop too badly.
The fleet study our partners conducted was very helpful — it does anticipate the really cold weather months and gave us a good idea of what routes were going to work during those months.
What is the expected life of an electric school bus versus a diesel or gas bus?
Both types of buses have a life expectancy of around 12-15 years. The body of an electric school bus is the same as its diesel counterpart, with the battery being the biggest distinction. An eight year battery warranty is pretty standard across school bus manufacturers, but that doesn’t mean that useful life is expired at the 8 year mark. Batteries are expected to last 12-15 years. You're just going to see degradation over time and what that means is you just have to bring the bus closer to the transportation department as it ages.
How much more efficient is an electric bus than a diesel bus?
Electric school buses are almost 60% more efficient, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. “Diesel school buses can drive at 8.20 miles per gallon, whereas an electric school bus drives at 20.87 miles per diesel gallon equivalent.”
Is the EPA current grant program the same as the rebate program coming out next month?
The funding source is the same, but these are two different programs. The current round of EPA funding (round 2) requires a district to apply for at least 15 electric buses. If you partner with your dealer, the dealer must apply for a minimum of 25 buses. This is a more complex program than the rebate version (round 1 and round 3), which has been based on a 20-minute application through sam.gov. The round 3 rebate program is supposed to be announced in the Fall of 2023.
In Ithaca, as you move down the path to full electrification of the fleet are you anticipating the need to involve your local electric company to increase grid capacity to your bus garage?
TetraTech [one of our technical partners] conduced a fleet study of full electrification and communicated the results to NYSEG [our local utility]. We didn’t receive any negative feedback around these plans, and the study was really helpful in communicating with our utility.
Matthew [Transportation Supervisor for Gates Chili Central School District] mentioned they got hundred plus miles per charge, what is the average mileage the buses run per day?
Our buses average probably 35 to 40 miles in the morning and 35 to 40 miles in the afternoon. But that will depend on your routes. The electric buses work for our routes.
What kind of support could municipalities provide to school districts to help facilitate the conversion to electric buses?
I think it's community involvement. It's making sure that everybody is involved in the process making sure there's no surprises for those that are living in the district again, it's a community process making sure they understand the mandate that everybody has to meet these requirements by 2027. I think that would be the biggest piece of support that they could provide.
Does Ithaca own or contract transportation? Is electric school bus to grid or electric school bus to building part of the Ithaca electric school bus transition plan for 2035?
We own our own transportation and we do not have a plan for vehicles to grid, although we do have in our capital project included solar panel canopies over the buses, so that can help us produce energy as well and energy back to building.
How are you handling sports and field trips? Are you utilizing any electric vehicles for that?
Currently, we have not put them on a sports or field trip. We do have one buss that we put with a student on the opposite side of town, so it was going out and doing about 93 miles a day.
We haven't either but I know part of our team conversations is that as you start to get towards the 100% electrification, we’re really going to see everybody’s operation change. We’re talking about how would these field trips change. So in part of our capital projects, we've already planned to put some chargers near the stadium for visiting buses. There may be things in the future like chargers through BOCES, where you can share charging with school districts. I’m sure that things are gonna change as we start to electrify more.
We have many school districts on Long Island, some have a complete fleet, some supplement with a private bus company or companies and others use only a private company or companies or are these programs open to private bus companies?
It depends on the program you’re going to apply for. Private bus companies can use the truck voucher incentive program, you just need to work with your dealer to help you through that application process. The EPA program is also open to private organizations. Again, it's finding areas where you can stack funding to make sure you can maximize that by also trying to use some of the funding for charges itself and not just the bus. Work with your dealers as they have the best resource as to where you can find it, but also even a grant writing team to help support them.
What forecasts can be developed on the cost reduction curve for the purchase of an electric school bus?
Our panelists recommended stacking funding as one of the best ways to optimize the cost reduction curve, looking at federal, state, and local programs to cover bus purchases, charging infrastructure, and other costs. Utilizing those different avenues to help offset the cost will help the numbers pencil out. Check out the total cost of ownership estimates below from Gates Central School District.
Want to talk to someone about how electric buses would work for your district? Get started with a no-obligation conversation with your local nonprofit fleet coach: Greater Rochester Clean Cities.
