Electric school buses help the environment and are better for the children they carry, but they come with steep upfront costs.
The bus bounces over this Boston suburb's patched streets in a way that would be familiar to anyone who ever rode a bus to class. But the bus is quiet – and not just because there are no kids on board.Right now, only a tiny fraction of the roughly 480,000 school buses in America are battery-powered. Most still use gasoline or diesel engines, just as they have for decades.
But this isn't like selling electric vehicles to drivers. School districts have to navigate a confusing array of subsidies and restrictions — and deal with the awkward fact that right now, a new EV bus costs a lot more than a traditional diesel-powered bus .is working on, as the batteries required to deliver the distance weigh a lot and take hours to recharge.
Plus, the buses' large batteries can store and deliver energy to power buildings and other devices, whether temporarily in an emergency or as part of a larger renewable-energy strategy.ESBs are expensive: Battery-electric versions of small "Type A" school buses cost roughly $250,000, versus $50,000 to $65,000 for diesel; full-size "Type C" or "Type D" buses can range from $320,000 to $440,000 in electric form, versus about $100,000 for diesel.
"We think for the next three or four years, as costs come down, as scale goes up, we'll need to have those incentives in place to make the numbers work," she said. "You've got more expensive equipment, but it operates much cheaper," he said, noting that — as with other EVs — the costs of charging and maintaining an electric school bus are considerably lower than with gas or diesel buses.
Not all of those applications, which combined amount to nearly $4 billion in subsidies, will be approved immediately. The EPA awarded about $1 billion in funds in October, giving priority to low-income, rural, and tribal communities. It expects to distribute another $1 billion in 2023.
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