Did you know there are about 15,700 school buses in operation throughout the state of Indiana? The vast majority of these are diesel powered, and they emit large volumes of greenhouse gasses. Currently, there’s a major effort underway to electrify as many school buses as we can statewide. Experts are saying this will not only eliminate a major source of carbon emissions, but also help school districts by reducing some of the lifetime costs of school bus ownership.
Replacing one diesel bus can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 54,000 pounds each year, according to Dominion Energy, a multi-state utility provider. One crazy fact to think about is the air quality inside of a diesel bus is actually five times worse than outside. That’s a major issue for students with medical conditions like asthma.
If every school bus in Indiana were battery powered, we’d remove roughly 847.8 million pounds of CO2 from Hoosier air each year. Plus, those kids on the bus would be able to breathe a little easier.
Transition Begins
There are a handful of school districts in Indiana that have already begun adding electric school buses to their fleets. One example is the Crown Point Community School Corporation, which added its first electric bus last year. This bus was funded by a $315,000 grant from the Indiana Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust Fund. Drive Clean Indiana, a statewide nonprofit organization that works to advance affordable clean transportation, was the organization that wrote the grant application on behalf of Crown Point schools.
According to Crown Point officials, their electric bus will save about 20,000 gallons of diesel fuel over its lifetime and prevent 226 metric tons of carbon emissions. On a three-hour charge at the school district’s transportation center, the bus can drive an average of about 120 miles.
More buses like these are on the way. Towards the end of last year, the first disbursements were made throughout the country from the federal Clean School Bus Program. This initial round of funding totaled $965 million nationally, and six public school districts in Indiana were grant recipients. Among these districts, 13 new electric buses will be added.
The districts that received funds were Michigan City Area Schools, North Central Parke Community School Corp, Northeastern Wayne Schools, Caston School Corp., East Washington School Corp., and Western Boone County Community School District. More Indiana school corporations will likely join this list as the federal program continues in the coming years.
Cost Comparisons
The lifetime cost of an electric bus versus a diesel bus is understandably going to be a foremost concern for most school corporations. Budgets are tight, and administrators are going to want a compelling reason to make the switch.
Estimations on this front differ, depending on where you look. So, we have selected figures from a range of national and state-based projections.
The first thing to consider is longevity. Most sources peg diesel school buses as having an operating lifetime of roughly 15 years (some say 12 to 15, others suggest 15 to 20, and several automotive enthusiasts say a well-maintained diesel engine can run 30 years or many more).
Most estimations about electric buses put their longevity at 12 to 15 years (again with enthusiasts noting the technology is constantly improving).
Annual maintenance costs vary widely. For example, west-coast utility firm PG&E lists the annual maintenance costs of diesel buses at $0.21/mile and electric buses at $0.09/mile for 2022. Hoosier-based Drive Clean Indiana uses data from the “Argonne National Laboratory’s (ANL) Alternative Fuel Life-Cycle Environmental and Economic Transportation (AFLEET) Tool” in their cost estimations. They list overall maintenance costs much higher at $0.93/mile for diesel and $0.56/mile for electric.
Fuel costs are obviously going to be tipped heavily in favor of electric buses. At the time of this writing, a gallon of diesel is about $4.378. Estimates on electric bus charging are about $0.20 per kWh.
On the flip side, the initial costs for an electric bus are substantially higher – roughly three times, as a diesel bus can cost about $100,000 and an electric bus can cost over $300,000. There are federal subsidies that can help offset the purchase of an electric bus, however.
As for the total cost of ownership over a bus’s lifetime, studies differ in their calculations but generally favor electric options. Again using the previously mentioned sources, PG&E says that over 10 years a fleet of 20 diesel buses will cost a total sum of $5.81 million and a fleet of 20 electric buses would cost $3.75 million. (That’s after large inventive packages for electric vehicles though.)
Drive Clean Indiana looked at the total cost of ownership for a single bus. They put their figures at $620,259 for a diesel bus and $613,594 for an electric bus over their lifetimes. (Note, the total years of operation were not specified, and incentives were not part of their calculation.)
The Bottom Line
The bottom line to all of this is that school corporations have new options to potentially curb emissions and possibly save money over the long term. More options are a good thing, even though it’s going to mean extra analyses for school transportation officials. The newer alternatives could be a good fit for the needs of many Hoosier school districts.
