
Why U.S. Cities Aren’t Using More Electric Buses - gmck
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/06/electric-bus-china-grid-ev-charging-infrastructure-battery/591655/
======
nimbius
Disclosure: im an engine mechanic for a small chain of diesel truck repair
shops in the midwest. ive also done fleet maintenance for a city bus fleet.

The reasons electric buses arent seen more often are many, and they arent
political at all.

\- Tooling. Fleets generally maintain all the tooling necessary for specific
make model and design of a vehicle. if that fleet gets large enough, they get
a seat at the manufacturers table to help steer development and ensure a
sustainable product that doesnt increase rider cost or decrease
economy/comfort. Battery fleets would mean having to outfit shops with new
training for high voltage, arc/flash suits, hot-sticks and other tools. Youre
likely going to need to hire a few electricians to train and oversee people as
well.

\- lifecycle maintenance. As a fleet mechanic I know down to the day, minute,
and hour when my motors are clapped out and when everything needs to be
replaced. Diesel engines can run for several million miles if well maintained,
but the lifecycle on a fleet electric vehicle is quite a bit more limited. A
Cushman or Toyota fork lift for example is often entirely electric and sees a
similar duty cycle (high tork, long service, low speed.) Replacement batteries
are provided from a third party every year or two. Fleet operators in most US
cities havent the slightest idea what the real-world operations lifecycle is
for an electric bus. Its likely going to be pretty poor if youre operating
these busses in places like Wisconsin winters or Arizona summers.

\- Again, Tooling. If you told me I was in charge of a fleet of electric buses
id probably quit. Youre talking about 50-60 busses for a small city, so youll
need a set of substations dedicated for high speed charging. youll need your
own PPD (Physical Plant maintenance) to handle generators during power
outages, cooling during summer, and general repair. Your existing diesel fleet
just requires a fuel dump and an apprentice mechanic. Youre also going to need
to understand how to dispose of something that can, if punctured, explode into
flames. Most oil recyclers in fleet operations pay _you_ for the oil you give
them and grant a discount on the new stuff. Ive never seen a fleet battery
contractor for forklifts that has ever done more than pickup, drop off, and
fees.

~~~
mattlondon
Everything here could have been similarly said about the change from horse-
drawn buses to internal combustion. Wah - you can't just have a stable-boy
feed them hay! Wah - you can't just clean up after them with a broom! Wah -
you'll need to train people used to dealing with horses to deal with engines.

I don't think moaning about having to get new tools or training is
particularly helpful in the grand scheme of things. If you are going to spend
money on new buses, spending money on new tools is a given.

Buses seem like such a no-brainer for electrification, I'd hate to think that
we're carrying on with diesel polluting our air and killing us just because
the mechanics are losing their shit over having to do something new. Please
wake up.

~~~
sho
Your reply is a bit snarky but I do tend to agree - and in fact if I was the
GP I'd see it as an opportunity. Skill up on electric fleet maintenance, maybe
do a certification, speak at a conference or two and suddenly you're an expert
for ICE-to-electric fleet conversions, of which are are going to be thousands
in the coming years. Play it right and you could parlay rapidly ageing skills
in the old ways into a lucrative, high-demand role heralding in the new.
Sounds pretty good to me?

In any technological sea change there are winners and losers. Winners sense
the wind changing, adjust their sails, and charge bravely ahead. Losers linger
adrift in denial, refusing to adapt until the maelstrom inevitably takes them.
Hint: be a winner.

~~~
jjeaff
Lucrative government contracts? You are going to need a team of lobbyists and
crony sales guys and millions of dollars to handle the overhead of businesses
that deal in government. Actual knowledge of the subject matter will be way
down the list of requirements to earn lucrative government contracts.

------
barney54
The real reason to look at battery-electric buses is pure dollars and sense.
Battery-electric buses can have lower lifecycle O&M costs. The current
generation might not have lower O&M costs, but there is definitely a path to
lower O&M costs with electric versus bus with internal combustion engines.

~~~
bobthepanda
The main issue right now is range anxiety.

In today's world, a diesel bus is able to run for an entire day, doing
route(s) back and forth without going back to the depot for refueling and
charging. This can be true for an electric bus, but in general the range is
not longer, and depends on stuff like

\- elevation changes in the route

\- climate; not only do batteries perform worse in cold weather, but heating
and cooling makes up a significant amount of energy draw. In an ICE bus
usually the ICE itself generates waste heat.

[https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/01/electric-
bus-...](https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/01/electric-bus-battery-
recharge-new-flyer-byd-proterra-beb/577954/)

> Similarly, the Minnesota source claimed that over the three-week trial,
> electricity consumption was 70 percent heating and only 30 percent motion.

> Wright said (as of early fall) that Moscow’s trial routes for
> BEBs—trolleybus Routes 73, 76, 80, and 83—have had to use more buses just to
> run the same service, pointing to before and after slides. The four routes
> appear to have gone from 46 trolleybuses to 82 BEBs without any increase in
> service frequency, presumably because BEBs have considerable down time for
> midday charging.

That incurs a lot of additional costs:

\- buses not in service while driving to and from charging points are
personnel and vehicle hours that cost money, especially if after charging you
need to be able to place the driver in a bus actually going into service

\- you are maintaining and storing a much larger fleet of buses now

Until an electric bus can be made that can run _a full day_ without charging,
costs will rise for electric bus adopters.

~~~
rightbyte
You can charge the busses at the endstation with a inverted "train roof thing"
for 5 min/45 min drive.

Heating should not really be a problem. You should use some open flame heater
with e.g. gas, wood spill etc for that not high quality electricity or
gasoline.

(Sorry swedish but look at the picture of the setup)
[https://www.bussmagasinet.se/2018/03/premiardags-i-
ostersund...](https://www.bussmagasinet.se/2018/03/premiardags-i-ostersund-
for-scanias-elbussar/)

~~~
jefft255
I am extremely skeptical about your open flame idea, especially from a
security standpoint and temperature control/maintenance.

Also, if as another poster says 70% of the energy goes to heating then why
replace this with a very dirty energy source? Kinda defeats the purpose.

~~~
rightbyte
Ye, maybe I should have written enclosed open flame. I meant some sort of
protected open flame heating a tube of water. Is burner the correct term?

Having a auxiliary diesel burner with water as medium is standard practice in
the area. The buses have so large windows that the heating power is quite
ridiculous. Maybe EV-buses need smaller windows? I tried to figure out how the
buses and the article are heated and another article states electricity and
oil burner when it's quite cold. ([https://www.jamtkraft.se/om-
jamtkraft/nyhetsrum/stadsbussar-...](https://www.jamtkraft.se/om-
jamtkraft/nyhetsrum/stadsbussar-laddade-med-fornybar-el/))

I don't think it's reasonable to heat them only with electricity in that
climate. Maybe a wood pellet burner could be used if one is made for
automotive use? I wonder if the pellets would bounce around too much ...
probably only good enough in rural areas where there would be no smog
problems.

The specification demands on heating oil is lower, so you could make it from
only tall oil (tree oil).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_oil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_oil)

~~~
bobthepanda
Biomass or biofuel being renewable or good for the environment is debatable at
best, especially when considering unintended consequences (like Brazilian
rainforests getting slashed for biofuel crops).

~~~
rightbyte
Obvoiusly the best is to not use the energy in the first place, but what
renewable ("regrowable") would be better than biomass if heat is what you
want?

------
supernomad
It is interesting to me that we aren't seeing a larger uptick in utilities
funding this kind of investment. The article does mention that in one of the
pilots, it was indeed funded by the local utilities. My interest lies in why
that isn't more wide spread. I can only imagine the massive amounts of
revenue, if not also kick backs from various government subsidies, that a
given utility would receive if EV buses see wide spread use.

That is not to say that there would not need to be investment in the utilities
infrastructure, but it would pay out in spades over time. OTOH I can also see
an argument to be made that the utilities may not want to see this happen
everywhere, especially in highly populated areas and areas that see power
supply issues in general.

~~~
sillypuddy
Utilities are pretty highly regulated in the US, there might be political or
legality reasons it would be hard for them.

------
archy_
Given the challenges with charging them with limited real estate in city
centers, would it make more sense to install overhead wires, like a trolley
bus, but retaining the ability to drive disconnected from the wires and
constantly charge when in an area with the wires?

~~~
Swizec
Buses are pretty big and don't care too much about weight. Surely you can slap
on a battery big enough to power the bus all day.

Since the bus is already parked _somewhere_ during the day, couldn't you
charge it then? From what I've seen there's usually a gigantic parking lot
somewhere in the city where all the buses go to sleep. Would the parking lot
need to be much larger to accommodate charging stations? I assume it's already
got a diesel pump of some sort to feed the buses since you don't exactly see
city buses at normal gas stations.

~~~
CaliforniaKarl
It comes down to energy density.

That setup (charging where the buses go at the end of the day) requires the
buses have enough battery to go their entire day on one charge. But then, that
restricts the ability to take a just-now-ending-service bus that's out on the
road, and redeploy it to fill in for a bus that is running late, or a bus that
has broken down.

(I have seen this happen: I have seen a VTA "Rapid" 522 bus, just about to go
in-service at the start of its route, switch to "Not in Service" and leave
without picking anyone up. When I called in to report the weirdness, the agent
on the other end checked and told me that an Express bus nearby had broken
down. That was the right call: The Raid bus was closer, and the Rapid schedule
frequent enough to absorb the loss.)

So ideally, you would want charging points to be available where buses sit
during the day. That is at least at one end of the route. It can be done, it
just takes more infrastructure.

> I assume it's already got a diesel pump of some sort to feed the buses since
> you don't exactly see city buses at normal gas stations.

While I was an undergrad at Ohio State, I drove 35- and 40-foot buses for CABS
(the campus bus service). We did indeed have a diesel tank and pump on-site.
But occasionally it would break down. When that happened, we would indeed use
a normal gas station! All of the nearby gas stations with diesel pumps were
evaluated for bus access.

~~~
munk-a
I wonder if you could get away with charging most of the buses by having
overhead lines in heavy bus traffic areas to power and charge the buses during
a portion of the route before having them return to full battery usage. This
might also simplify overhead line deployment as there are some areas that are
poorly suited for lines - line deployment could be focused on easy to service
and deploy areas.

------
jaxbot
Seems like misguided faux environmentalism, like banning plastic straws but
keeping the longtail of plastic waste. Electric buses are good, of course, but
a well-designed and highly utilized bus network, even with the dirtiest diesel
engines, is going to get you serious wins over GHG/CO2/VOC emissions from
automobiles if you can replace those trips.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Certainly we don't want to make perfect the enemy of the good: given a fixed
budget we're probably better off buying 2 diesel buses rather than a single
electric bus.

But don't forget particulate emissions: I believe that's the primary
motivation for electric bus conversion. Buses are a significant portion of
particulates in many cities, and particulates kill people.

~~~
NickM
_given a fixed budget we 're probably better off buying 2 diesel buses rather
than a single electric bus._

I think the situation is a little more complicated than that. Electricity is a
much cheaper fuel than diesel, and maintenance costs are lower for electric
vehicles too, so in the long term electric buses may end up saving more money
than they cost.

Add to that the fact that interest rates are very low right now, and it may
even turn out that financing the electric buses and charging systems could
allow cities to save money from day one, though I haven't crunched any numbers
so this is admittedly just speculation on my part.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
> maintenance costs are lower for electric vehicles

I think there is a <citation needed> here. Do ICE drivetrains really
constitute a large fraction of the maintenance costs on cars and buses? In my
experience, suspension and steering, and auxiliaries, are the things that
break.

~~~
vvanders
My anecdotal evidence of ~90k miles on our EV says yes. A coolant flush, tires
and windshield wiper fluid are the only things I've done in that time.

Compare that with Brakes, Oil changes, Transmission service, DPF + DEF and the
host of other things you get with a diesel engine + transmission.

We've got a diesel truck, diesel tractor and EV, it's pretty easy to see the
maintenance differences between the three of them over the years(the tractor
being the highest with the added complexity of a hydraulic system).

~~~
crummy
I don't know anything about cars. Why did you need work done on your brakes on
a diesel but not on an electric?

~~~
rlucas
I doubt it's due to the EV's regenerative braking; if anything, that's a more
complex system with more things that can go wrong.

The answer is probably easier: a Prius is 3300 lbs and a Dodge Ram is 6600 lbs
and carries much, much more if working. Those truck brakes are going to be
thrashed much harder.

~~~
dahfizz
The regenerative braking system is not complicated at all. In fact, it comes
basically for free!

All that happens is you cut power to the motor but leave the wheels attached
to the motor. This is the same as "engine braking" on a manual. The wheels
turn the motor, which steals kinetic energy from the car and charges the
battery.

There's no extra bits or anything. It's all in the drivetrain that's there
already.

------
linuxftw
Are current US bus sizes right-sized? Perhaps we need smaller buses on more
interesting routes. Really large buses with mega-batteries (possibly literally
megawatt sized) seems impractical compared to natural gas. However, 10
passenger shuttles, and more of them, might be practical. If the operating
costs can be lower with electric, then that should free up budget to hire more
drivers to drive more routes to drive better utilization, etc.

~~~
TremendousJudge
More buses means more drivers, and salaries are probably the biggest expense
here

~~~
novok
Self driving buses on fixed routes with special infrastructure put in by the
city to help out might be the lynch pin here.

~~~
fooblitzky
Self-driving buses might be great, but there's no point in waiting for them to
be invented when there are such large gains to be made today from better and
more frequent bus service, and increased efficiency/reduced pollution (from
both ICE and electric buses).

~~~
linuxftw
I completely agree. Instead of adding to the ever-expanding pavement, we could
use that money smarter for free or greatly reduced public transit, and tons of
it.

------
dmitriid
The correct question would be: why is the US so very very very bad at public
transportation in general?

Electric busses are just a (tiny) extension of that question.

~~~
rhinoceraptor
The cities are less dense, and the population boomed (and moved to the suburbs
several miles away) in a time where the economy was good and car ownership was
cheap.

~~~
madhadron
And we're paying for it now, because they're too sparse for the tax base to
support urban services and too dense to have self sufficient services like
deeply rural areas.

------
clairity
LA ran into many of these issues in it’s electric bus pilot program, as
reported in the LA times last year: [https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-
me-electric-buses-201...](https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-electric-
buses-20180520-story.html)

------
vermontdevil
Indianapolis is about to start a new electric bus service along a new line
called Red Line:

[https://www.indystar.com/story/news/local/transportation/201...](https://www.indystar.com/story/news/local/transportation/2019/05/23/indygo-
electric-buses-red-line-wireless-charging/1212252001/)

They are facing problems though with the range etc. So be interesting to see
the long term result of this project and I'm hoping for the best. This area
desperately needs better public transportation.

------
peter303
E-buses consume 6 times the power per mile as a e-sedan. So they are more
efficient if the average passenger load is larger than that.

~~~
romwell
So, they are more efficient with 10 passengers[1].

[1][https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1040-july...](https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1040-july-30-2018-average-
vehicle-occupancy-remains-unchanged-2009-2017)

------
tomohawk
Seems like hydraulic hybrid for buses would be a much bigger win. 80% capture
of braking instead of 20%.

------
ptah
why are electric vehicles so much more expensive to buy?

