Brandon Admin To Give NC $26.7 Million For 114 Electric Buses

I’ve very much looking forward to see how well they handle the NC heat

Let’s find out more

(WRAL) More North Carolina school buses are going electric.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus Grant Program is giving $26.7 million in federal funds to buy 114 electric school buses, Gov. Roy Cooper’s office announced Tuesday.

Durham Public Schools will get 38 of those buses, and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools will get 27 of those buses. The buses will be distributed to lower-income, rural and/or tribal communities, according to Cooper’s office.

The EPA touts electric school buses for their reduction in asthma-linked exhaust, lower emissions, reduced maintenance and fuel costs, and their ability to provide power during outages.

Will they remember to build chargers for the buses, especially those out in the middle of nowhere? Oh, and it comes to $230K per bus, when a normal bus costs $80K-$100K. Buses that can easily be fixed. The range is poor due to the weight (the average is around 100 miles), and heat can reduce that. And, it’s not just temperature: it’s the Sun shining on them. I always tell people that 50 in NC is different from 50 in NJ, because the Sun warms you up a lot more. How will they do on fast roads (many of the roads from rural areas to cities are 45mph and up)? We already know that electric buses have significant issues and lots of downtime. The infrastructure needs to be built out. Mechanics need to be trained. And what happens with the existing buses which still have lots of lifetime? What’s their lifespan? A typical fossil fueled bus lasts 12+ years.

All for a scam.

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13 Responses to “Brandon Admin To Give NC $26.7 Million For 114 Electric Buses”

  1. H says:

    Presumably, they will choose to use the busses in 1 or 2 central hubs this reducing the number of chargers needed
    Cali has 1000 all electric school buses in operation
    They cost 24 cents per mile to operate while diesel costs including maintenance run 49 cents per mile. The total savings per bus is over 6000 dollars per bus per year. As nd kids don’t have to duck diesel fumes every school day
    Nationalgrid.com
    Oct 20,2022″. Journey to net zero”

    • Dana says:

      Let’s use Mr H’s figures.

      The total savings per bus is over 6000 dollars per bus per year.

      Mr Teach informed us:

      Oh, and it comes to $230K per bus, when a normal bus costs $80K-$100K.

      So, if the difference in price is $130,000, and the electric buses save $6,000 per year, the break even point is 21.67 years.

      I know, I know: math is raaaaacist.

    • Dana says:

      Mr H wrote:

      Presumably, they will choose to use the busses in 1 or 2 central hubs this reducing the number of chargers needed

      If the buses are hooked to 480-volt superchargers, then the systems could do with fewer chargers, but that would also require overnight personnel to move buses away from the chargers once they were fully charged, to move the next buses into place.

      If the buses were on more standard 220-volt chargers, and recharged overnight, then there would be as many chargers reqired as there were plug-in electric buses.

      The range is poor due to the weight (the average is around 100 miles), and heat can reduce that.

      That might work in a city, but once you get to more rural county school systems, nope, sorry, won’t work. And those systems would need the 480-volt superchargers, because the buses would need to be recharged not only at night, but during the day, between the morning and afternoon runs.

      • Professor Hale says:

        … and heat can reduce that.

        And cold does too. Plus the battery drain to create heat so kids don’t freeze in the winter and A/C so they don’t suffer in the summer. Using electricity to create heat is the least efficient and earth friendly way to do it. I am guessing the football team will not be using these for away games and will continue to rely on busses that use real, dependable fuels.

  2. Professor Hale says:

    Oh, and it comes to $230K per bus, when a normal bus costs $80K-$100K.

    Sure, but it’s “other people’s money” so it’s like getting free buses.

  3. Elwood P. Dowd says:

    How did Republican NC Governor Roy Cooper and/or the Republican NC House and/or Republican NC Senate allow the federales to force this down North Carolinian’s throats??

    The North Carolina state Senate has a 30 to 20 Republican majority and the North Carolina state House has a 72 to 48 Republican majority!!!

    Why didn’t Senators Richard Burr (R-NC) or Thom Tillis (R-NC) intercede for the citizens of North Carolina? Couldn’t the Republican House majority put the brakes on this??

    North Carolina is very conservative with President Trump demolishing Brandon winning 78 counties to 22 counties in 2020, with a commanding 49.9% plurality of the vote!

    This is just more of the communist tyranny out of Washington forcing this scam on hard-working Patriotic Americans like the 49.9% of North Carolinians who voted for President Trump!!

    Can the massively Republican North Carolina state legislature vote to defend this attack?? Why won’t the Republicans protect the children of patriotic North Carolinians from electric buses?? Of all the Carolinas, North Carolina is rated the second MOST conservative!!!

    Oh, it turns out North Carolina APPLED for these funds. Nevermind.

    “New funding for electric school buses means protecting the health of children from harmful diesel fumes, cutting carbon emissions, saving money on bus maintenance for tight public school budgets, and creating good jobs in North Carolina,” said Governor Cooper. “This investment is good for our students, schools, economy and planet and I appreciate the Biden Administration for investing in our communities across North Carolina.”

    These 114 new buses are in addition to the 31 buses awarded to North Carolina schools under the Clean School Bus Program’s first round of funding in 2022. Gov. Cooper’s administration already funded 43 electric buses in 2022 through his settlement with Volkswagen , bringing the total to 188 electric, zero-emission buses in North Carolina schools in the last two years. These awards contribute to several key pillars of Governor Cooper’s goals: better resourced schools, building a clean energy economy, and creating a healthier environment for North Carolina’s children and communities.

  4. Elwood P. Dowd says:

    And don’t forget the $1.09 BILLION train fiasco that Brandon recently forced on patriotic, conservative, Republican North Carolina!!

    Oh, North Carolina APPLIED for this grant. Nevermind.

  5. W Wilson says:

    I can guarantee you that 26 million dollars would only make a down payment on 114 buses.

  6. H says:

    Wilson. Please use a calculator before embarrassing yourself

    28,000,000$ ÷ 114 buses equals $245600 per bus
    I guarantee it !

  7. unklc says:

    Haven’t seen any real world, non-governmental, stats on operating an electric school bus. In the case of an EV motorcoach, the EV worked out to be about $.20 per mile more than diesel in retail terms. The best I’ve seen so far was a couple of professional coach operators drove a 45′ MCI EV coach across the southern US last summer. They liked the bus, but charging it was a problem. An EV school bus could be practical, however they cost around 2X to 3X the price of a diesel bus without the support infrastructure. A conventional school bus generally costs somewhere north of $100k depending on what class, etc. Thomas and Blue Bird are both currently producing EV school busses. Dana brought the charging issue up earlier and makes several good points.
    I’ll add my usual disclaimer, I don’t own or have any plans to acquire an EV, but I am invested in several domestic EV manufacturers and research constantly. Aside, in my early work career, I drove a class D school bus (a Thomas) for a couple of years.

  8. CarolAnn says:

    H. Please work on your reading comprehension before you embarrass yourself. The amount of money quoted in the article it’s 26,000,000 you said it was 28 million. You are completely wrong and off by 2 million.

    Even with all your white privilege you can’t get that right. What a shame.

  9. drowningpuppies says:

    Heckuva job, Joey.

    Electric buses are just like electric passenger vehicles: they’re not ready for prime time, only more so. Proterra buses are a case in point. Cities that wasted money on them found they had far less range then advertised. They commonly couldn’t complete even short, flat routes specifically designed for them. The enormous weight of their batteries cracked frames, and getting parts from the factory was virtually impossible. But to make up for their failures, they were far more expensive than reliable diesel buses. Proterra went bankrupt in August of 2023.

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/01/electric_buses_another_bankrupt_green_boondoggle.html

    #LGBFJB
    #Trump2024
    Bwaha! Lolgf https://www.thepiratescove.us/wp-content/plugins/wp-monalisa/icons/wpml_cool.gif

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