Electric School Buses More Than Doubled In USA From March 2022 To June 2023::Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News! According to the World … [continued]

  • stoy
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    1 year ago

    European here, I like reading about improvements of public transport in the US, I wish you guys all the best.

    • CluelessLemmyng@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      Me, too. I know from the outside it feels like America doesn’t make progress. But on a local level, many cities and counties are making strides. I know the areas near me are trying to be cost efficient with public transport, but I also live close to DC. It’s kinda the thing here.

      • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        True. It’s really does look like the US makes no effort at all from the outside. But the truth is that half of the country, the red states, really is not doing much at all. Any progress is mostly made in blue states. It’s like two countries stuck together. And they are wildly different.

  • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    From 5 to 10!

    Kidding aside, I love this, but would love exponential growth more. School buses have mostly pre-defined routes and always stop at home base overnight. They’re an ideal candidate.

    • spongebue@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Technically 5 to 10! would be factorial growth. If that trend continues, we would quickly run out of space on planet Earth to hold all those busses 😉

      • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Also lawn equipment. I’m amazed that people still run these smoke spewing, oil leaking, horribly inefficient little devices all around their own property.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I’ve found the battery powered yard tools fantastic, but I live in an urban area with small yard. I don’t know whether you’d have as good an experience with a large yard or as a service

        • OpenPassageways
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          1 year ago

          I’ve tried out both a battery-powered weed wacker and a battery powered lawnmower and had to get rid of both. As much as I wanted them to succeed, they were both just seriously under-powered and needed multiple batteries to complete the job.

          Probably will take another look at them when my current gas models need to be replaced maybe in 5+ years, hopefully they’ve gotten better.

    • fatalError@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      Idk, cases like these seem like a waste of lithium. Why not make it a trolleybus? You’d need much smaller batteries, they wouldn’t care much about low temps and charge time would be irrelevant. Seems like such an underrated tech.

  • hydrashok@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Love to see it. All these large vehicles that stop and go in urban areas are prime candidates for electrification. Hope to see (at least) one in person around here in the next few years!

    • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I wish there was more transparency on the maintenance side of things to compare running costs for EV vs ICE. The running costs and wear on the EVs will probably be significantly reduced enough to cause pause for further ICE investment on the local level.

      • hydrashok@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Agree. I imagine that as these fleets grow you’ll see more of those figures. In my experience, the 10k service on my EV was just a tire rotation. $20. I certainly spent more than that in oil changes alone with my ICE in the first 10k miles. I imagine it will be the same for buses.

        The downside is the significantly higher up front cost, but you make up for it in reduced fuel and maintenance costs, as well as a longer service life.

  • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    school buses look like they are literally the best kind of vehicle to be electric.

    premade path, with very clear requirements for range, for a few hours a day then back to the charger.

    • spongebue@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Also mail trucks, especially in (sub)urban areas. Those things really don’t put on that many miles each day, and the type of driving they do gives them terrible mileage that would be much more efficient on the electric paradigm.

      Sadly, the Grumman LLVs are set to be replaced by stock vans.

    • OhmsLawn@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I was going to say this. They’re Ideal. You can slow-charge 16 hours a day, idle them for 4 and discharge for four.

      A city bus has to do the opposite, which is why there are a lot of municipalities moving towards on-wire trolley charging, where corridors are powered with an overhead catenary system, but branches are run off-wire.

  • Yaztromo@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    My daughters school (in Canada) uses several. They’re not only quiet, but they’re not spewing gas/diesel fumes where kids are standing around when loading, especially in the winter. They’re not at 100% electrification yet, but they appear to have around 50% of the busses as EVs.

    Nice for the local residents too, as they’re much quieter running and up down the residential streets around the school.

  • Copythis@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I was walking around one morning and heard that unsettling futuristic electric car noise.

    To my surprise, it was an electric school bus! It looked like every other school bus, but the bottom was blue. I saw it take off too, it seemed like it had a lot of giddy up to it.

  • Adi2121@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Back when I still took the bus to school, all the buses where and still are electric. Great to see it being nationwide!