137
This electric school bus has a range of up to 300 miles
(arstechnica.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
137 points (98.6% liked)
Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.
5301 readers
438 users here now
Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
7% at the end of a ~300mi roundtrip rural run is really cutting it close 😳 although if the journey is mostly flat I think it's OK, as long as there's enough range to go via any diversion if the road is blocked.
They could definitely get a bigger battery onto that roof, the main expense there probably would be customising the aircon to fit around a roof battery pack instead of buying one off the shelf
The electric buses here all have roof mounted batteries and they last pretty long - the chinese Yutongs are out all day with the heating on, but our domestic built ones seem to last only 3/4 of the day, and after that they vanish with the old diesel ones appearing on routes until the night
Keep long routes diesel or gas for now and wait for battery tech to improve. Even if 70% of buses are moved to electric, it is still a big chunk of emissions that are cut.
Or maybe just put a charging point in at thge driver's lunchtime rest stop
Lunchtime rest stop?
Where I'm from bus drivers drive from 7am - 9am and then go home and come back for 3:30pm - 5:30pm.
They essentially get the entire work day off. Not just lunch.
Solar would barely make a dent with the power consumption of a bus
It would. Not if you use the full 300 mile range twice a day, but many school buses are used for two 25 mile trips per weekday and parked in the sun the rest of the day plus weekends. Cover the roof in high efficiency panels and you can get significant range.