This back-to-school season, the electronics list includes not only laptops and calculators, but also something a little more important: the school bus. Nearly 200,000 of the more than 25 million students who ride the bus in the United States will ride an electric bus this year, according to the World Resources Institute.
WRI’s data analysis shows that more than 800 school districts in the United States have at least one electric bus on the road, and funding is secured for about 12,000 more, or about 2.5 percent of the nation’s roughly 500,000 school buses. But at a cost of about $350,000 per bus, districts say they wouldn’t be able to fund new fleets, including buses and charging infrastructure, out of their own budgets.
A $5 billion cash infusion from the Environmental Protection Agency, passed as part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in fall 2021, is a significant step. boost for fleet electrificationFederal grants have funded more than two-thirds of committed electric buses. Some states have helped fill additional gaps, including California and Massachusetts.
School buses are ideal for electrification, says Leah Stokes, an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The buses “run the same route every day and can recharge in the middle of the day,” Stokes said. “They’re the easiest vehicles to electrify. That’s why it’s so important to switch to electric school buses. It’s better for our health. It’s going to save school districts money, and it’s better for our planet, of course.”
The go-electric policy could reduce funding opportunities depending on who occupies the White House next year, Stokes said. “If Trump is elected, the bottom line is we lose that funding,” she said.[Trump] “The government is not interested in electrifying our transportation system.”
Federal funding is essential
In Modesto City Schools in California’s Central Valley, Superintendent Sara Noguchi said her district had initially planned a $12 million investment to electrify half of its fleet from diesel to electric.
The district, which transports about 5,200 of its students each day, has deployed 30 electric buses in the 2023-24 school year. The district has reduced its out-of-pocket cost to $3 million from that initial estimate, district officials said.
Noguchi said his district would not have been able to make this investment without the federal funds, and acknowledged that funding can sometimes be political.
“I hope that as a nation we commit to doing the work around sustainability that we know we need to do, regardless of what political party is in power,” Noguchi said.
The savings are already starting to add up in Modesto, where Noguchi said diesel costs have been cut by 41 percent, or 47,000 gallons of fuel, reducing the school district’s emissions.
“What does that add up to? A little over a million pounds of carbon in two years that’s not being emitted in the Central Valley and our air system,” Noguchi said. “Over time, and especially if we have all our buses and other districts have all their buses, that’s going to be a game changer.”
Reducing emissions also has health benefits. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 4.3 million school-aged children in the United States have asthma, which the EPA says can be caused or worsened by exposure to diesel exhaust.
Until electric vehicle charging stations become available everywhere students go, including at high schools where Modesto students are bused to sports and to senior travel destinations like Disneyland, Noguchi will have to keep some diesel buses for long-distance trips.
“They get through it with a smile”
For parents, the change is welcome. Elvira Ceja has three children in Modesto schools, two of whom have respiratory problems and allergies, respectively, which she says are made worse by diesel fumes.
A year of using the electric buses has reduced the number of headaches Ceja’s children suffer from, prevented them from visiting the doctor and improved their overall mood, she said. Little Maite can greet her brothers Aaron and Ariel at the bus stop without her mother worrying about the air quality.
“They used to get off the bus angry,” the housewife explains. “Now they get off with a smile, take a ball and go outside to play.”
Ceja believes the new buses are worth the investment. “We always want our kids to be safe,” she said. “For the whole community, less pollution here in Modesto is great.”
