Build back better proposes 6 billion to electrify post office fleet 70%

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

You forgot International busses and maybe 1 or 2 others, but they're ditto. Huge resistance to anything not conventional by school boards until forced by state mandates.

School busses are monocoquue

I knew Thomas Built had 40% market share but I thought Bluebird was stronger. It looks like buses are the one segment were International is still holding on. (They lost huge market share in the medium duty and heavy duty market when they made a bad bet on diesel tech back in 2010)

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

The busses I have driven, the frame is just a structural tie, the whole body is one piece, but that is wrinkle wall busses. I suppose that could be semi.

What brand is that?

The TBB Saf-T-Liner is a school bus body on a medium duty truck chassis with a ladder frame. They are fully drivable without the Bus Body in place.



https://thomasbusnj.com/wp-content/u...l-Brochure.pdf

[redpoint5]

Look at all that wasted space. A battery box could go where that frame is and be a structural member. Eliminate the driveline and exhaust by going electric.

I find it hard to believe an EV bus would be more expensive than a conventional one. The Bolt battery is ~64 kWh and delivers 250+ miles on that platform. On a bus maybe it would only deliver 100 miles of range on a cold day, but you really only need 50 miles for a typical route I would imagine. The Bolt motor is over 200 HP, which is all a bus needs.

Have a few conventional buses in the fleet for those longer trips to away games, but use the EVs for the daily routes.

[Piotrsko]

I can see a 50 mile route out in the country, but one for high and one for elementary, maybe one for kindergarten, so 100 miles, but 2 busses and like 2 hours each run, park 4 hours and repeat. Never drove that far.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Look at all that wasted space. A battery box could go where that frame is and be a structural member. Eliminate the driveline and exhaust by going electric.

I find it hard to believe an EV bus would be more expensive than a conventional one. The Bolt battery is ~64 kWh and delivers 250+ miles on that platform. On a bus maybe it would only deliver 100 miles of range on a cold day, but you really only need 50 miles for a typical route I would imagine. The Bolt motor is over 200 HP, which is all a bus needs.

Have a few conventional buses in the fleet for those longer trips to away games, but use the EVs for the daily routes.

That is a diesel or gas bus.

With the electric bus (Jouley) the battery is under the frame rails and the motor is in the rear.

220 kWh Battery
290 hp motor (peak) / (170 continuous)
130 mile range
1.4 kWh / mile (24.6 MPGe)
65 mph top speed
0-60 49 seconds
3 hr charge time on 60 kW charger
Vehicle to Grid capable.

You know how to insure commercial failure? Make your low volume vehicle use expensive custom components like a battery pack that doubles as a frame instead of using cheap, off-the-shelf, high volume shared parts.

More details here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB_j...Merryman%2CInc

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[redpoint5]

As discussed elsewhere, there are ways to offset the increased infrastructure cost involved in retrofitting a bus yard with high power electrical service. My favorite idea is to partner with the utility to provide V2G buffering. In the summer when none of the buses are utilized, have those batteries offset some peak generation during heatwaves.

During the school year, there's still margin to buffer peak demand.

How many buses with V2G capability would be required to offset the construction of 1 NG peaker plant?

It would be among the easiest ways to learn how to implement V2G capabilities since buses run on a set schedule, and the infrastructure would be concentrated and more easily managed.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

As discussed elsewhere, there are ways to offset the increased infrastructure cost involved in retrofitting a bus yard with high power electrical service. My favorite idea is to partner with the utility to provide V2G buffering. In the summer when none of the buses are utilized, have those batteries offset some peak generation during heatwaves.

During the school year, there's still margin to buffer peak demand.

How many buses with V2G capability would be required to offset the construction of 1 NG peaker plant?

It would be among the easiest ways to learn how to implement V2G capabilities since buses run on a set schedule, and the infrastructure would be concentrated and more easily managed.

In Virginia, Dominion Energy is paying the extra vehicle cost and charging infrastructure cost in exchange for using the buses as V2G battery backup.

1 bus can cover peak loads for 10 homes.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Look at all that wasted space. A battery box could go where that frame is and be a structural member.

The only electric buses I have ever seen were of some flatnose design and had most of the powertronics set at the position a rear engine would be, enabling a low floor through most of the interior lenght in order to improve accessibility to wheelchair users for instance. So it becomes harder to rely on a battery box as a structural member.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

The only electric buses I have ever seen were of some flatnose design and had most of the powertronics set at the position a rear engine would be, enabling a low floor through most of the interior lenght in order to improve accessibility to wheelchair users for instance. So it becomes harder to rely on a battery box as a structural member.

Maybe so, but there's enough buses in the world to justify a purpose-built EV design rather than shoehorning in some electrical in place of ICE componentry. That's just 1 example too, and there's plenty of other machines just begging to be electrified and purpose-built, like garbage trucks... and letter carrier vehicles, back to the purpose of this thread.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Maybe so, but there's enough buses in the world to justify a purpose-built EV design rather than shoehorning in some electrical in place of ICE componentry. That's just 1 example too, and there's plenty of other machines just begging to be electrified and purpose-built, like garbage trucks... and letter carrier vehicles, back to the purpose of this thread.

The entire US bus market (school and transit) is less than 50,000 units per year split over a bunch of manufacturers.

The electric bus market is projected to total 27,000 over the next decade.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by JSH

The entire US bus market (school and transit) is less than 50,000 units per year split over a bunch of manufacturers.

The electric bus market is projected to total 27,000 over the next decade.

I didn't know that, but I was also thinking globally.

The Bolt sold in similar quantities and was not simply an ICE vehicle converted to EV.

There's usually reasons why things aren't different than they are, so that makes sense.

Wasn't it Musk that said new technology needs to be 20% better before people will abandon what they are used to?