6/20/2023 0 Comments Greenhouse packages spress bus![]() ![]() But the future is now in Montgomery County, Maryland, a Washington, DC, suburb with more than one million residents. It is past time to bid them goodbye.Īt present, barely 1% of U.S. As the buses idle in traffic, they despoil our residential neighborhoods with noise and toxic soot. It poisons bus drivers and maintenance workers too. As the Environmental Protection Agency has noted, particulate pollution is most dangerous to children, “who have a faster breathing rate than adults and whose lungs are not yet fully developed.” Diesel exhaust is a significant source of student illness and absenteeism. According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, diesel fumes are “carcinogenic to humans.” They’ve been linked to asthma, chronic respiratory disease, and premature death. The incentive will only grow with continued innovations in battery technology.īesides cutting greenhouse gas emissions and offering stable, long-term economies, electric school buses help eliminate hazardous pollution and smog. In terms of total cost of ownership, over a typical vehicle’s 12-year lifespan, school districts can actually come out ahead. ![]() And while electric buses have significantly higher sticker prices than the diesel-run variety, they save up to 80% on fuel, maintenance, and repairs. In short, school buses are tailor made for electrification. Since school buses are used for relatively short distances and only a handful of hours during the day, the main barriers to electrification-limited range and charging infrastructure-are neutralized. alone, close to half a million school buses carry 26 million children more than 4 billion miles each year. It would be a tangible boost for our planet, our neighborhoods, and our children. carbon emissions by more than 5 million tons, the equivalent of removing a million cars from the road. If districts bought only electric ones from this point forward, the nation’s entire fleet could be converted within a decade or so. About 40,000 new school buses are purchased each year. Where passenger cars have yet to reach price and performance parity with combustion engines, and long-haul trucks are waiting on more powerful batteries, forward-thinking school districts are already shifting to electric buses. One EV segment is especially ready for electrification: the humble school bus. With Tesla rising, General Motors pledging to retire gasoline-powered lines by 2035, and other major car makers ready to follow suit, the electric vehicle era will soon be upon us. Transportation accounts for at least 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions, roughly eight billion tons of carbon per year. ![]()
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