The Beatles once sang, "All you need is love." But will Kamala Harris' professed LOVE for electric school buses - plus the $1 billion in taxpayer subsidies she announced last October - be enough to usher in the new paradise?
The $1 billion in rebates pledged is to help purchase 2,500 electric school buses in some 391 school districts around the nation.
There are in fact about 500,000 school buses transporting children to and from school, to and from ball games and other events, nearly every school day.
By simple calculation, this suggests it will take a $200 billion investment just to replace existing school buses - which must be done, Kamala tells us, by the 2030 deadline or else CHILDREN WILL DIE. Do factories, batteries, and other raw materials exist to build 500,000 school buses - and every other vehicle in America today - by 2030? By 2050? Does that much money exist? Does that much electricity exist?
" Should Kamala keep her job in 2024, the EPA's Clean School Bus Program is committed to handing out another $4 billion over the next five years.
A total of 391 rebates were awarded, and the Vice President anticipates thousands more applications as the EPA's Clean School Bus Program awards a total of $5 billion over the next five years.
Even the smaller electric school buses today cost about $250,000 compared with just $50,000 to 465,000 for a diesel-powered bus of the same size.
Towing capacity should be about half the weight of the towing vehicle, and the typical electric school bus weighs 36,000 pounds.
Using data supplied by Pacific Gas & Electric, Colorado journalist Cory Gaines noted that the $260,000 cost differential between diesel and electric school buses means that any school district wanting to take advantage of the predicted much lower operating costs will need major help with the huge upfront capital costs.
Noting that electric buses have longer downtimes and higher towing costs, plus require costs for installing and maintaining charging stations - and other hidden costs, the payback on the electric school bus comes out to about 20 years - longer than the lifespan of the bus.
Charging the battery for an electric school bus takes up to eight hours using AC power, but with a diminished range in cold weather taking children on long bus trips for any purpose might require an extra day on the road in each direction.
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