[E]specially valuable [in this new funding round]: non-prioritized districts now being included, because every district needs a chance to get started on ESBs. Also, the new wheelchair lift allowance, because students with disabilities are more vulnerable than average to toxic diesel emissions. Also, their buses do much more idling than general education buses as the wheelchair lift is deployed.
1,289 ESBs are on the road in 40 states and U.S. territories
4,696 additional ESBs are committed (funding has been landed)
The largest share of ESBs are in the most disadvantaged districts, which have the worst air quality – good!
See your proposal as valuable regardless of whether you win. ESBs are in all of our futures, so everything you learn, you will eventually use. In particular, building the utility part of the application with your utility is time very well invested.
EPA’s new funding round, though, goes deep instead of wide. I love this one too, because it’s designed to help whole fleets transition to electric, while easy, open-arms rebates are designed to get fleets started on ESBs. We need both.
I’d love for manufacturers to explain why it can cost 80-100 thousand less to buy a brand new diesel bus and repower it to become electric than it does to buy a new electric school bus in the first place. Why?
Only 2.4% of U.S. school districts are operating or have yet ordered their first ESB. Would busy school bus fleets and school boards and superintendents be wasting their time, this early on, by learning about V2G?