Electrified School Buses

[tp4tissue]

This seems like a bad idea.

26,000 accidents a year,

20 pedestrian death a year,
5 bikers,
80 other vehicle occupant,
10 bus rider kiddos.


You take a giant bus, with a GIANT battery. These things ignite far more readily than gas buses, and they go up FAST, often explode because of the battery pressure.

In serious accidents, with lithium cars, you have less time to GET OUT of the vehicle than gas cars.


Now you're in a crash, you may be delirious, often not wearing seat belt, because kids are stupid.

So you got stupid delirious kiddos next to a very big, possibly going to explode exposed lithium fire.


They should really study this further, before making the jump.

[Findecanor]

Have you been watching oil-industry funded propaganda on TV about the dangers of school buses that don't use flammable volatile liquids as fuel?

[tp4tissue]

Hahaha, no but Tp4 has been looking at exploding lithium cars lately, they go up fast.

[noisyturtle]

Has there been any long-term objective studies comparing the effects of oil pollution and the half-life of buried lithium's effects on the environment?

[Leslieann]

On a bus, you have far more area you can put a battery, meaning you can pick and choose where to put it and enclose it in a much safer manner than on a car. You also have more material and crumple zone before you hit said battery.

[TomahawkLabs]

Why did we skip over the Plug in Hybrid stage (Toyota not withstanding). The Chevy volt is the perfect car for so many people, but it went unloved. EV motor with a battery to get you through your day to day and then a gas generator for long distance driving. This concept removes the complexities of a gas engine for a simple EV motor with a battery good for 50 miles or so. Keeping the battery small keeps costs and engineering down. It also allows for the battery to be replaced at economical cost vs a full size tesla battery swap costing more than some new cars. Using these cars would keep existing gas stations/infrastructure in place, but drop the amount of gas used day to day for commuting all while not drawing 60a per car when charged at home.

Please drop the push for full EV and lets do plug in hybrids for a few decades while we polish up battery technologies.

[fohat.digs]

Why

My question has always been:

Why doesn't EVERY electric vehicle have a solar collector in its roof?

[tp4tissue]

Aerodynamic loss, cost prohibitive, area not large enough to offset added weight.

Utility scale solar is always more efficient. Dual-Axis tracking is a big deal.


Scientists work hard to basically make a fraction of 1% of gains on these panels. If you put them in sub-optimal conditions, you're wasting alot of hard work already put into the chemistry/physics. 

[Leslieann]

Why did we skip over the Plug in Hybrid stage (Toyota not withstanding). The Chevy volt is the perfect car for so many people, but it went unloved.

The problem, is car dealerships, which is actually part of why Tesla actually worked.

New car sales pay the salesman and sales management salaries, nothing more, pretty much everything else is paid for by the repair shop. As such, the dealers will hide electric/hybrid inventory, GM dealers in particular. This is part of what killed the GM EV1 program and all but destroyed the Bolt. It's also what kept Chrysler afloat in the 80's (out of warranty parts sales).

And while you can say screw the dealers, dealer, as we saw during the 2008 recession and Buick's attempt at rebranding hold a LOT of power. If they decide as a group not to sell a car there's not much the manufacturers can do to stop them. Sure they can stop the cars flowing to them, but then they aren't moving inventory, this shuts down lines, causes parts shortages and cost a truckload of money to store the cars you do have on hand. As we saw in 2008, most manufacturers have very little cash on hand. Plug-in hybrid is seen as electric as far as dealers are concerned because they know electric can be very reliable and if the electric is working, a LOT of people won't bother getting the motor fixed if it has an issue, they can just use electric. It's similar to A/C, in most places you can probably get by without it if it meant a hefty repair bill so people do.

You pretty much had to create a new company from scratch and cut out the dealer to make it work. Both the Bolt and Volt are both actually decently liked by owners but most of the time if there is or was one on a dealer lot, it was hidden in back out of view so you wouldn't want or easily test drive it. They were sabotaged by dealers, just as the EV1 was. This is also why the first time around when California mandated electric every company chose their least liked car/truck for electric conversion, at the time for Ford it was the Ranger (lowest customer satisfaction in a truck) and for Toyota they chose the original unloved Rav4, a quirky, tiny 4x4 usually found being towed behind a motor home (it's grown up since).

Now that electrification is coming despite the sabotage, they're now in a panic, they know Rivian, Lucid and Tesla have a huge lead and they now have to do something. Don't be surprised if one or two of the 3 get bought by one of the big 3 as a way to catch up (it also allows them to skirt unions and dealerships). On the contrary, if Tesla's board of directors could boot out Elon without the stock tanking (not going to happen), I wouldn't be surprised if they bought on one of the big 3 in the near future (7 years?). Electrification has really upset the industry and not everyone is going to survive. If you can't compete you have to buy your way in and that window can is closing really fast.

[Leslieann]

Why doesn't EVERY electric vehicle have a solar collector in its roof?

On a typical size roof it's only going to give you ~2 miles per hour of charge (it needs thin flexible panels not high efficiency ones).

[fanpeople]

Our public transport system runs a few electric busses on contracted routes and has done so for a few years.

No problems yet, you can't really tell either they just look like normal buses.

[fohat.digs]

Rivian .... Don't be surprised if one or two of the 3 get bought by one of the big 3

Didn't Rivian get bought by Volkswagen recently?

only going to give you ~2 miles per hour of charge

Cool. Many of the jobs I have had were under 16 miles from home. On sunny days half of my commute would be "free"

My last job was just under 7 miles, so that would be sweet!
 

[Leslieann]

Didn't Rivian get bought by Volkswagen recently?

Rivian is publicly owned company, Amazon is the biggest shareholder with 16% ownership. 30% by private people.
Lucid is now 60% owned by the Saudi Investment Fund (state owned).

Cool. Many of the jobs I have had were under 16 miles from home. On sunny days half of my commute would be "free"

My last job was just under 7 miles, so that would be sweet!

The panels themselves cost several hundreds of dollars now add dealer markup ($$$), plus you need to design the roof for them, plus more electronics, no sunroofs, etc...
Is it really worth $3k (just a guesstimate)? It's going to probably take over a decade to break even.

It's like buying another more fuel efficient car to save on gas but increasing your monthly payment. "I save $100 a month on gas!", but you spent an extra $120 a month on the car payment.

[fohat.digs]

$3k (just a guesstimate)?

It's going to probably take over a decade to break even.

Point taken. On the other hand, over the span of 100K miles @ 20 MPG @ ~$3 per gallon, that is $15K in gas.

Assuming that the price of gas and electricity remain the same (ha ha ha). Batteries, tires, etc, etc, are a given, but the electricity that the panels catch is falling free out of the sky. And the panel is still drinking in that energy just the same when you are sleeping in on Sunday morning, mowing the yard, or taking the wife's car on an expedition with the kids (unless you are a good steward of your property and keep it in the garage).

edit - Electric motors require a lot less in maintenance and repairs than internal combustion - yet another reason that the people exploiting us don't want us to have them. And my guess is that infrequently replacing the cells hardly makes a dent in the equation.

[tp4tissue]

A transmission rebuild alone is like $3000-8000.

[Leslieann]

$3k (just a guesstimate)?

It's going to probably take over a decade to break even.

Point taken. On the other hand, over the span of 100K miles @ 20 MPG @ ~$3 per gallon, that is $15K in gas.

Assuming that the price of gas and electricity remain the same (ha ha ha). Batteries, tires, etc, etc, are a given, but the electricity that the panels catch is falling free out of the sky. And the panel is still drinking in that energy just the same when you are sleeping in on Sunday morning, mowing the yard, or taking the wife's car on an expedition with the kids (unless you are a good steward of your property and keep it in the garage).

edit - Electric motors require a lot less in maintenance and repairs than internal combustion - yet another reason that the people exploiting us don't want us to have them. And my guess is that infrequently replacing the cells hardly makes a dent in the equation.

No, 10 years to pay off the cells, the car can pay for itself sooner... MAYBE.
Going electric can save you money, however, that's ONLY if you charge at home, preferably from solar. It actually cost more to charge a Cybertruck at a Supercharger than it does to fill up a 3/4 ton pickup with gas or diesel by about 30% according to one video I saw on it. Keep in mind it can cost several thousand for solar and a fast charger (EACH!) wiping out any gas savings for the next 10-15 years for that as well. It's not as rosey at first as people claim but it will pay of at some point down the line and needs to happen.

At normal rates the latest cells should be good for about 15 years and if Toyota has the breakthrough they claim* their new "cells" will last a loooooot longer than that. And if you combine that some of the tech more modern cars and Cybertruck are using**, cars could be set to last a lot longer than they currently do with almost zero maintenance.

Don't expect almost any current cars (especially hybrids and electric) to become restored classics, they are in a dead spot where lack of interest and parts will doom most of them rather quickly. Combined with what they're worth to recyclers, few will survive the change to more modern electric. Ford stuff in particular.*** Some of the gas only vehicles could probably survive into classics and get restored, sounds counter intuitive but current electrics and hybrids will simply be out dated with no one to want or be able to save them until it's too late. Just look at 70's malaise cars. How many really want to restore a Pinto? A few people but even if you do good luck finding one worth doing that wasn't recycled in cash for clunker programs. Which will happen again as they try and get rid of current gas/hybrid/electrics only to see it mostly be hybrid and electric cars with bad batteries and few still functioning gas cars. You will need electrics to really make strides and then gas to absolutely skyrocket before you really start getting gas powered off the road.

* Gm claimed it at one point as well but I have more knowledge of the Toyota design and have more faith. The problem was and probably still is, scaling it up.
** Things like regenerative braking makes brakes last longer, electric steering needs no fluid or pumps, no engine means tons less wear and tear, electric has a smoother power delivery for less stress. It's just a lot less moving parts and a lot less of them grinding against each other and a lot less fluids to leak. And that isn't even getting into exhaust and smog regulations which causes a lot of money keeping within regulations. We can also finally get back to reasonably sized cars and trucks as companies no longer have to build larger to skirt emissions requirements, not that it will probably stop them.
*** Ford is keying parts to the engine ECU, similar to what Apple does with cell phone and laptop parts and once those parts go out of stock Ford isn't going to help you bypass the codes. Had a work truck almost go to the salvage yard because we had trouble finding a compatible ABS unit. It still throws up error codes but at least it's driveable again. Current vehicles will become increasingly hostile to outside repairs until full electrification and right to repair laws catch up and by then expect a lot to be almost done.

[TomahawkLabs]

Lack of standardization and support is what scares me. If there cannot be an aftermarket then you are at the whim of the manufacturer. What happens when your all in one hvac/speedometer/stereo/display fails in 10 years and you can’t find the part and if you can it’ll cost you 5k for the part because it’s proprietary.

Same thing with battery replacements. A replacement motor on a typical car is 5-6k. When the battery is $15k, plus whatever other maintenance they would be total loses.