A commemorative card was given to each riding child acknowledging the historic milestone in Sooke B.C. : https://victoriaevclub.com/british-columbias-first-electric-school-bus-enters-service/ More on the way: https://www.nanaimobulletin.com/news/nanaimo-ladysmith-school-district-shows-off-electric-buses/ Lots of idling time with conventional school bus, this should be a great benefit for the environment and provide operating cost reduction as well.
It opens up the market at least. Clearly, a lot of tax dollars at work. It won't be hard for Bluebird and others to match this. The next round will undoubtedly be a lot more competitive. The electric bus market will be very interesting to watch. Some inside info I gleaned about a local city that debuted some electric busses this winter is that they are very popular within the department. EV grins everywhere.
That seems super expensive. Diesel buses appear to be in the $80,000 neighborhood and the Thomas Built Saf-T-Liner C2 Jouley are said to be $120,000 more than a traditional bus (sidenote: it's not easy finding new bus prices). That would be about $242,000 in Canadian dollars. Plus the Thomas Built Buses use Proterra powertrain, so I tend to have more faith in it.
New Flyer Industries makes electric buses. Not sure what they cost though. https://www.newflyer.com/bus/xcelsior-charge-ng/ So does Vicinity. https://vicinitybus.com/models/vicinity-lightning-ev/ Their plant is actually in my backyard, about 20 kms from where I live. And they are opening a new one just across the border in WA.
I think the viability of school bus EV is dependent on the way the bus system is run. Most buses run a maybe 10 mile loop 4 to 6 times a day[depending on whether middle school is separate] but in Mass many districts don't own their buses and they would have to return to their depot at the end of day. That longer round trip would mean a chunk of the range would be taken up with that 'commute' Also even a small district with a half dozen buses would have quite a charging setup IMHO the construction style of school buses has not changed in 70 years or more. IF someone was to reinvent the school bus so it could lose a few thousand pounds of weight, making it EV would be easier. The issue would be to get the miles per kW up to a decent level so that battery cost is not extravagant and charging can be managed
I was thinking about this too: there's gotta be a better way to build school buses. Lighter, more aerodynamic, not prohibitively expensive, with the ability to scale. The same approach could be taken with any number of large vehicles. I'm not a materials expert so I'm not sure if a low-riding composite uni-body with solar roof is the best solution, but it is in my imagination.
I'm not sure I agree that aerodynamics are particularly critical since most school busses seldom drive over ~40 mph. Lightweight is important for ICE, however, the ability of regenerative braking to recapture acceleration energy means that it may be better to focus on improving regenerative braking efficiency rather than reducing the vehicle mass. Price, of course is also important but that is lifetime cost so fuel costs of an ICE which is so inefficient in stop-start driving is probably the biggest favor toward EVs.
