Posted on 05/30/2023 1:04:21 PM PDT by lowbridge
One Michigan school official admitted his district’s move to using electric buses was less than the government has touted it to be.
Emile Lauzzana, the environmental sustainability director of Michigan’s fourth-largest school district, recently told the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education that the district’s electric bus fleet has had “a lot of downtime and performance issues.”
“It’s been a tough 2 1/2 years with this program,” Lauzzana said.
“We’ve been learning a lot about this technology,” Lauzzana also said. “Electric buses are approximately five times more expensive than regular buses, and the electrical infrastructure, which was originally estimated to be only about $50,000, give or take, for those four buses ended up being more like $200,000."
Lauzzana explained the district attempted to utilize "Vehicle to Grid" interconnection, which helps push energy back to the grid when buses are not being used, but that the “technology was not working.”
“I will say that I have a number of colleagues in different states who are facing similar challenges,” he added, noting the differences between electric cars versus buses. “For the school bus market, it’s been challenging for us.”
Ann Arbor Public Schools reportedly purchased its electric buses with a state grant that was funded by Michigan’s portion of a Volkswagen environmental settlement.
Last year, the Biden administration announced $17 million in grants to fund zero-emission electric school buses.
Despite the buses’ frustrating performance, Lauzzana affirmed Ann Arbor Public Schools would remain committed to the use of electric buses “as incentives became available.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Hope he updated his resume.
Yeah, they learned it doesn't work, costs a lot, and generally sucks.
“Emile Lauzzana” : See Schaudenfraude.
Cut the government employee salaries to pay for the greenenergy cost differences and the additional problems. The government employees will quickly embrace Internal Combustion Engines.
Just wait until they go to replace those batteries in the failed busses.
Attend the refresher course on public finance, cost v. benefit analysis, rather than pandering for political favor and taxpayers hard earned dollars you might as well just be pouring into a Beltway to China money hole, for goods and services you will never realize.
Gee.....who saw that coming 🤷
“zero-emission electric school buses”
No such thing.
These are most likely coal powered electric busses.
Duh! Didn’t they research prior to purchase?
Localities love to get their federal capital money—and then quickly burn it many times over in operating expenses.
They never learn.
As I recall, conservatives were warning of these problems at the time schools and towns started purchasing those electric buses. No one paid attention. They didn’t consider all the possibilities, including the fact that charges seldom lasted as long as advertised, or that heating and cooling would be a problem. There are other issues.
For instance, schools that normally use buses to transport their sports teams to out of town trips are now in a quandary. If the school they are traveling to does not have charging stations for buses available, then they risk not having sufficient power to return the student home.
I dealt with this issue first-hand at my place of employment prior to retirement. I had often reserved the use of an institutional bus to transport groups of 30 or so to a town 100 miles away. Before I retired, I received a notice that since they had switched to all electric buses that service would no longer be available. Those buses would not make the round trip without re-charging and since re-charging may not always be available, they would not allow those buses to be reserved any longer. I notified my replacement that she would have to deal with that problem. I was out of there!
“Despite the buses’ frustrating performance, Lauzzana affirmed Ann Arbor Public Schools would remain committed to the use of electric buses “as incentives became available.””
In other words, if the federal government (tax payers) will pay them to do so.
Wait until one or more burst into flames!
Quadruple the price and half the performance and the response is to double down on the “investment”. Wonder how many black child slaves died mining the ore for the humongous batteries needed for these behemoths. And when the battery dies, they’ll bury in a landfill and poison the ground water for generations.
And lamenting the demise of sports travel is hilarious! As if any leftists would give two sh*ts about that!
Lefties are happy to have you inconvenienced, overcharged, and hamstrung to make their feelings better. They especially like it when their solutions involve child slavery [batteries, cheap shoes, high fashion]. Reality be damned.
This was all knowable before the money was spent. So why has it come as a surprise? Because many people no longer reason, rather, they FEEL. In other words they’re idiots.
Democrats used to love the precious rainforests, but now have no problem destroying them and all of the endangered species of animal plants just to build EV batteries
Raping the earth to “save the planet “
I hope this isn’t a fatal blow to Kamala and her love for electric school buses ... on second thought ...
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