EV School busses/mobile power storage devices
 

The Billion-Dollar Potential Of The Ordinary American School Bus

Except they aren't GENERATORS (that threw me a loop at first).

That sounds like the most dubious business plan I ever heard of. If they don't get a contract with the utility for some guarantees on the rates, they will be screwed in no time. As well as reducing the cycle life on the batteries, those "new" batteries won't be new for long (plus charge/discharge losses). If it were cost effective, the utilities would just add stationary batteries to the network.

The great thing about doing this with school busses is there is no- I repeat NO- amount of spending too outlandish for school districts. It is easy to spend other people's money, and it's just as easy to invest it in things that may or may not pay off.

Ive read about tons of people who go solar with a setup to sell back to the power company. They are always screwed on the fees for the metering and kw amount. They rather go gridless or never of setup the metering in the first place.

Im not so sure this is a terrible thing! I mean if implemented correctly I could see electric school bus's becoming very mainstream. And as far as a mobile generator I think they mean it can replace a generator. That could be useful to move around energy in power outage situations.

Look at Hurricane Sandy or other Natural disasters. These could be used to power critical infrastructure.

I still the idea of an electric self powered trailer makes the most sense. You can use the same idea then with moving energy around. Making it self powered would allow connecting to I.C.E vehicles to make a short range ev or an extended range hybrid.

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Let me see....... 1) you use electric buses to shuttle kids to school and back home during the day. 2) you charge up the depleted batteries with electricity you purchase from the electric company at night. 3) Somehow magically you are able to sell huge amounts of electricity back to the electric company for billions of dollars. But all you did was replenish the batteries with electricity until they are "full" and paid the electric company. Electricity comes in, money goes out. Somehow this Clinton Grant is generating money from thin air. "I did not have sex with that woman."

School buses are usually parked in open-air lots. With the latest solar panels being competitive with coal power, installing them on the roofs of school buses would provide portable power that could be commandeered in cases of natural disaster.

This is about load-balancing.

I didn't either.

Theres something called peak power costs, With our power company here they offer a 3 hour plan from 3-6 m-f the rate is 31.1 kwh the rest of the time is 9 cents kwh. If you charge your battery at 9 cents and the discharge it back to the grid at 31.1cents you gain $$$ do you get it?

I can see where it could appear that there was $$$ to be made.

However basing a business model on the accounting methods of another company that you will have no control over doesn't seem sound.

Once you invest millions on the infrastructure they could just add a clause to the electricity prices limiting the large peak period feed in rate to just the first say 30kW.
This wouldn't affect most individual customers home solar feed in set up but would eliminate any profit from your business.
Or as more people put solar on their roofs they may drop the feed in price. That is what happened here. The government let a collection of senior executives from various electricity companies get together and decide what a "fair" price would be for feed in during peak periods. Surprise, surprise they decided that a bit less that the wholesale price for off peak electricity would be a fair price. We went from a 33 cent feed in to a 6.5 cent feed in. Off peak supply price is about 13 cents and peak supply price is about 34 cents plus another 6 cents if you want electricity from a renewable source. Must be hard to make a profit with those figures. :rolleyes:

Also as mentioned, the buses need what they charge up with at off peak rates to actually drive around. So there would be no surplus to feed back in at peak times.

As for using them for emergency power during a disaster. I would expect all available buses would be getting used to move people around rather than sitting plugged into a building.
Also once the buses charge ran out it would be impractical to attempt to recharge it in situ. And with it's charge depleted it won't be going anywhere under its own power.
For emergencies a big diesel generator with a big fuel tank mounted in a standard shipping container form factor is the easiest to move long distances and the easiest to refuel in the field.

The only use i could see the buses being put to other than being a bus would be as a load leveller. Connected to the grid and supplying some power for short voltage sag events where the bus can be quickly topped back up after the grid recovers. Useful but not profitable.

I remember reading something about electric buses. I did a quick search and this was the most relevant thread: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...bus-23334.html

It is actually hardly relevant, although this one goes into the costs to drive a bus: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...sel-17511.html

How much does a city bus weigh

How much does a school bus weigh

What does weighing 60% more do in start-and-stop traffic?

At my bus yard, some of our buses had covered parking, although I believe it was just the special-needs buses. The VA and some other government buildings out here have solar-covered parking, which is supposed to save the government money. Generally, people on here say that solar panels would be best positioned somewhere stationary, and used to charge the vehicle when parked.

People here think that it gets cold, but I disagree. I have a covered parking spot, which does not make my car any colder, because I leave for work while it is still dark, but it magically prevents frost from building up.

How well does covered parking work in cold places?

So this model has nothing to do with buses, children or schools. These items are there to deceive the public into thinking that this scheme is for the common good......for the children.....for education......for safety..... You can eliminate the buses altogether and just install battery packs at locations to be charged at night and discharged during the day. And these locations no not have to be at schools.

And as Astro mentions (thank you Astro) the remaining model relies solely on the local electric company charge structure which could (and would) change to benefit the electric company if there was money to be made. Competition is a good thing and somewhat predictable and would eliminate this model's effectiveness in making money "for the children".

Bottom line here is the government knows nothing about effectively running a business and NEEDS to lie about it in order to sell the idea.

I think some one is trying to cook up an another "alternative energy" scam.

A few years a go the federal government was giving away billions of dollars to start up solar panel manufactures. They took the money and closed their doors with in a year, once all the money was hidden, I mean gone. After this happened about 50 times, over the course of 2 or 3 years, the exact same way each and every time the government eventually got wise to them.

There was another one of these start ups that wanted to make natural gas powered vehicles built especially for disabled people. The federal government gave them millions upon millions of dollars just so they could figure out most places didn't have CNG and there really wasn't any market for their product. When the money was gone the doors closed for good.

A prime example of your tax dollars hard at work.

So if you have a totally stupid idea (doesn't have to be original) that can bring together school children or disabled people, alternative energy in the name of saving the world from the global warming bogie man you too can get a ridiculous amount of other peoples money form the government to piss away.

Social Anarchism in Thailand

Open Source Science and Technology News: Off the Grid? Or Make Your Own Grid?

The only political system that scales to global proportions is anarchism. The growth of Internet establishes that as fact. The Maker movement shows us direction. This is a story that provides a case in point.

I was only replying to his mocking of how charging something then discharging it at a later time makes no sense.... because it does.
But not on a moving platform like a bus, It would make sense stationary near large renewable resources.


But as far as the original idea goes, I dont think its as ridiculous as your saying. If they can power the buses with electricity I would think it would be much cheaper than ICE buses. Its being done with alot of fleets currently. Maybe CNG or LNG in areas?

But with EV buses they can be used for a whole lot more than just school needs. You want to talk about business. How much do you think Barrett Jackson spent on mobile generators for lights at their Scottsdale auction? Those diesel generators can be cheap and neither is diesel. A local school system could "rent" buses for these purposes MAKING money.

It is still a good idea!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwhfZvTmCqI

The vehicle to grid doesn't appear to be going anywhere.
The OEMs don't seem interestedin talking to utilities.
Unless the bus depo is next to a sub station your max grid connection is probably less than 1 mega watt.
That's like 2,000 amps of 480v power.

Then in grid scale a few mega watts isn't really a lot.

Mobile power stations sure. That could work.
How much will it cost and would municipalities really be interested in spending money on something they may never use?
When it comes to disaster preparedness, robustness, backups, redundancy most bean counters won't allow it or keep it to less than the bare minimum.

EVs are in the very beginning of the technology adoption curve. It wouldn't make sense to deploy infrastructure for technology that barely exists in the market. I assume at some point in the future this will change and that V2G stands a good chance of being developed.

https://ondigitalmarketing.com/wp-co...ionofideas.png

The Japanese charging standard incorporates V2G capability, and my guess is that v2.0 of J1772 will likewise incorporate a provision for sending power in the other direction.

If battery capacity gets cheap enough, people will be purchasing batteries simply to avoid using electricity from the grid when it's expensive, and perhaps sell it back at that rate.

I guess the Mandela Effect is real. I distinctly remember posting about that in the last few days, but Google search denies that it ever happened. Of course I can search on the URL of the video and it says 'No result found'.

Anyways, won't someone think of the children. Less exposure to diesel particulates will increase their collective IQ.

And the proposition is to spend $11B and save $3B a month thereafter.

Darn straight I'm in innovator.
I built my own private charging infrastructure, but if I had a 40kwh or bigger EV I wouldnt really need it most of the year.
Chademo was always intended to be 2 directional and all chademo vehicles made since about 2013 can send power 2 directions already.
J1772, CSS and tesla would pretty much have to be completely redesigned. That would start with year model no one knows.

I think electric buses a good idea. At least for most of the fleet.
But it's 4 years later and almost nothing has happened with vehicle to grid, so that part is still kind of pipe dreamie.

I'm for electric buses, but not for the federal government getting involved. That's absolutely far, far outside the scope of federal government. Citizens should be demanding them from their local governments, and a corresponding decrease in their property taxes with the money saved.

I think our DMV finally accepts debit cards and mostly uses electronic records... 20 years after I began accepting debit and using electronic records. I expect school buses will go electric about 20 years after everyone else is driving EVs, or 45 years from now.

It also looks like some of that low cost is betting on a unlimited supply of really cheap used EV batteries which doesn't exist now.
Not sure if that $ total took into account adding multi thousand amp 480v to all the bus depos or rebuilding them next to sub stations to make the busses maybe worth something as grid storage.

I think it's worth doing just for the lessened brain damage to the little proto-people.

Just roll them out slowly. A few busses that can use existing electrical for the shortest, slowest most stop and go routes. See how those do, change as needed, get more busses, upgrade electrical, add more busses.
Because they said in the video when busses are stopped thats where kids get fumed the most. So start there.

Makes sense to me; rather than replacing working buses, just buy EV when new purchases are required. BTW, they should be purpose built to be EV, not retrofits.

Busses designed to be electric from the get go would be a better product.
One thing they didn't address was heat. An electric heater murders range. My leaf uses resistance heating and it kills the range when it's cold.

Just wait for the $2,000,000 Tesla schoolbus, announced for 2025, but released in 2030.

My passengers in the Phoenix area were highly intolerant of me not running the heater. I wore a jacket to inspect, took it off, and drove in a t-shirt and shorts with my window open.

I don't think I've ever complained, as an adult, about my ride as a passenger. Can't complain about a free ride. I bite my tongue when the driver is the type constantly switching between mashing the throttle, and tapping the brakes.

The rubber meets the road:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/enth...cid=spartanntp

Seems among the wisest ways to spend VW settlement money to me. They could have put in a few chargers or something, but I don't think that's the responsibility of government.

Cleary the bus is converted from a regular body though, as there's no reason to have a huge engine bay in front. Would be better to have a flat nose (for visibility) and no mirrors. Would be neat if follow up stories were offered once these have been in service for a while.

60kw bidirectional isn't squat in grid scale.
Then you get more than a few of them the buildings electrical service is maxed out.
Get about 10 or more and the local grid is maxed out.
But if all they do is build a vehicle to grid protocol then that is a step.

heat
 

The school districts can modify their purchase agreements with all manufacturers to provide an insulated cabin and glazings.The students will generate enough metabolic heat to temper the inside of the bus.With cameras,all the driver needs is a defrosted windshield,with little power requirement.
The weight of the pack will improve CG issues, and overturned-bus injuries/ fatalities.Worth doing anyway.
Tesla packs are good for 20-years.And EV won't contribute to global warming from 'dumped' compressed natural gas and propane tanks,as a prerequisite to maintenance at the school district bus barns.As is the current practice.

I've been saying that EVs should have started with things like school buses and garbage trucks. Insane that garbage companies would run big noisy machines that require extensive maintenance and waste a ton of energy constantly stopping when they could have been EV.

Wish I had vehicle engineering experience so I could build a garbage truck company.

School bus seats should have seat belts, so when the seats get replaced, seat heaters should be added, as well.

There are between 460K and 480K school buses in the US. 460,000 x 60kW = 27,600,000kW.

Meh, kids can wear coats. The first kids in might have a colder cabin, but each person puts out about 100 watts of heat. Get 40 kids in there and you've got 4,000 watts.

garbage trucks
 

The City of Denton,Texas,went to hydraulic-hybrid garbage trucks,and it pushed efficiency from,1.3-mpg,to 1.6-mpg.
The Denton School District uses propane-powered school buses,which,when the in-tank fuel pump goes out,are just vented off,(Nearly the most potent greenhouse gases)and no-doubt a federal crime if I was caught doing it.
I suspect that the energy efficiency of electric regeneration,vs hydraulic would be at least an order of magnitude.
And if you'll GOOGLE 'fatal school bus rollover accidents',you'll get an idea of the superiority of an EV layout.Manslaughter-by-incompetence.

each person
 

Yeah,it's 300-Btu's per person.13,800-Btu for a 45-passenger bus.

I expect EV efficiency to be way more than an order of magnitude. Consider very little energy is lost due to aerodynamic drag. A garbage truck might hit 5 MPH before stopping at the next can. That momentum can be recaptured at something like 80% efficiency. I imagine it could be even higher if supercaps were used to capture braking energy.

By your definition, all accidental death is due to manslaughter. There's always another level of safety that can be built into a system, but at some point we have to say "good enough". That isn't to say we shouldn't strive to improve something, but death by school bus rollover is among the lowest causes of death in children.

rollover
 

The statistics don't properly flavor the loss experience of parents and family survivors whom will have to go on without the deceased.
The four-foot-high floor of the bus necessarily raises the center-of-gravity,making them ripe for rollover.Greyhound and charter buses as well.I'd like to see a side-by-side comparisons from the National Transportation Research Center.
I do believe the USDOT,NTSA,Bluebird and the other bus-makers, and purchasing departments are all guilty of manslaughter when I see this.
Peter Principle all-around.

Bus travel is orders of magnitude safer than other forms of transportation. By your own criteria, parents are guilty of manslaughter when their children are accidentally killed in regular vehicles since they could have put them on a bus, which is statistically way safer.

Again, I'm not arguing to accept the status quo, and I'm in favor of EV buses for many reasons, and among them are the lower center of gravity.

You don't seem to get the concept that "make it as safe as possible" is not actually possible. It reduces to the notion that we'd better all stay home and do nothing, for risk of injury. Every single thing is a compromise, and the balance of that compromise is up for debate, but the existence of injury and death is not proof of negligence.

The level of emotion felt does not shape truth, either. It's irrelevant to the facts of the matter.

safety
 

There might be an implied trust on the part of the parents,that those in a position of authority in the school district have their back.
The recent reporting on school shootings carries the misconception that parents don't give a rat --- about their children's safety?
It's easier and cheaper to build a lower bus and pull a trailer for cargo.We've had this in the USA since 1951.
What is the argument for more expensive,less safe buses?
It's a simple engineering proposition.The safety would be by default.
If I can envision an inherent safety concern,why not those charged with student safety? Are any of them qualified to hold their jobs? What are the manufacturers thinking about? Let's only launch Space Shuttles when it's below freezing?