Tampa Bay school gets pair of plug-in hybrid buses
By Darren Murph 
posted July 23rd 2007 7:42AM
posted July 23rd 2007 7:42AM
From a kid's perspective, we're sure they'd much rather be cruising on the iPod-equipped bus than a vanilla version that gets significantly better mileage, but regardless, a Tampa Bay school will become the first to receive a pair of hybrid buses to shuttle students around while saving between 70 and 100-percent in fuel costs. The vehicles can be fully charged in around six hours, and while the aforementioned improvements are only so drastic for the first "50 miles or so," it's certainly not a bad start. 'Course, school district officials are hoping that fuel savings will eventually lead to more money for classroom improvements, but we reckon it'll be quite some time before the savings on fuel overtakes the up front cost of these (presumably pricey) machines. Click on for a peek at the video.[Via AutoblogGreen]
Wow,
So freaky seeing a local news station, and county near me on engadget.
Well, I wonder how long it'd be to the middle schoolers going to mess it up and it costs more money to maintain then to use, last year a bus went missing cause of them...
Same here I just saw this on TV.
It's a great start.
-and it does have to start somewhere.
I'm not a mechanical engineer, and I'm not an accountant, but how can it save 100% on fuel costs? If it ran completely on electricity and used no diesel fuel, it still has a "fuel cost" based on the electricity used to charge it up.
Shhh, they're getting their checkbook out!
I'm glad I'm thinking the same thing as you, Joe: we're going to have to start defining our energy costs in some sort of standardized units when it comes to getting our vehicles to go on our roads anymore. We also need to start questioning these "environmentalists" when it comes to 'saving the plant' because from what I'm seeing, we're trading one environmental sin for another.
Yes, the bus can run off of electricity, but where does that electricity come from? My guess is a coal plant (which "environmentalists" would call 'bad' because of the pollutants put into the air) or a hydro electric dam ('fish killers') or nuclear ('will kill for generations to come).
And what about these compact fluorescent bulbs that we're all supposed to be switching to that the "environmentalists" are telling us to use because it reduces our energy needs? It'll only be a matter of time before they're bitching because of the increased mercury in our landfills from people throwing away spend fluorescent bulbs en masse.
I'm an advocate for energy need reduction, but please just don't do it blindly by replacing one environmental sin with another...
Silly, you didn't hear the man right, and you need to study algebra again.
He said "70-100% improvement in FUEL ECONOMY," not fuel costs.
What does this mean?
Say your car gets 20 MPG. A 100% improvement in fuel economy means that it gets 40 MPG, meaning 20 MORE MPG than before. 20 more MPG / 20 MPG originally = 100% improvement.
Say your car gets 10 MPG. A 70% improvement in fuel economy means that it gets 17 MPG, meaning 7 MORE MPG than before. 7 more MPG / 10 MPG originally = 70% improvement.
Hope this is clear.
@Michael Schmitt
i really dont get where people like you come from. you say that you would like change, but if the change has any type of downside to it...its equally bad. so we should ditch it. you're really looking to move to a complete status quo with this statement. there are no environmental fix alls to fix the environment, or to fix our energy problems. everything needs to be done in baby steps, i think everyone feels firm about this. If we had a president and a congress that felt more, well...interested, in changing the way we get out energy and some of the federal standards that are in place, then there wouldn't be coal plants burning coal to produce electricity. Solar, hydroelectric, wind, and more research all need to be pursued more.
It would seem to me that they could double the energy efficiency of these buses merely by finally dropping that ugly-ass box design and adopting a shape that the wind could actually gel with, instead of actively resisting it just because it's so damn ugly.
I'd agree with patsy, drop the ugly ass bus design and get an aerodynamically efficient one.
Did anyone watch the video? I nearly choked to death on this line:
"Former aerospace engineer turned school bus driver..."
OMGWTFBBQ?!?!
After my time in private engineering, I could see trading in an 80+ hour work week with no overtime for an under 40hr work week with overtime and state benefits.
It looks like a pretty good retirement job to me.
Yeah, try getting state bennies for driving a school bus.
It's about age- you won't get a teaching job if you are over 50 with multiple master's or doctorate. $$$
Is driving a school bus better than greeting at Wal-Mart? Go figure.
Yeah! Local news story on an international site for the win!
If the goal is actual energy reduction and not just nice PR then plug-in hybrid is not a very good solution. Buses generally have several routes each day, and plug-in based systems just aren't going to realistically provide enough capacity to make a major dent in the time it runs on the engine. Another way to look at it is that a bus is an expensive piece of capital equipment that needs to be fully utilized to maximize its return on investment - and that means that a system that only works if it's used for an hour a day just isn't going to fly (this is in contrast to the way that most people use their cars, where an hour a day is just fine).
Buses lose a lot of energy to all of the stopping and going, so brake energy recapture is key to improving efficiency. Given that space isn't a huge concern, they should look at the mechanical energy recapture systems like the one that UPS is starting to use:
http://www.hydraulicspneumatics.com/200/Issue/Article/False/38545/Issue
I wonder if they finally have air conditioning. Riding a school bus in Florida during the summer is not good times. Seriously.
I don't think it's a coincidence that the 6hr recharge time is just shorter than the average school day.
And by the way, for those bagging on plug-ins:
Making a million dollar change that only adds 1% efficiency to one school bus is a waste of money. Making a million dollar change that adds 1% efficiency to a power plant will get you a bonus and a promotion.
This is in response to your reply on my comment that it would take 20 years to pay off the initial costs. This was a hypothetical case and Matt has taken the liberty to explain the realistic scenario - it would take 60+ years to pay off the debt. Please read his comment.
The man in the video said "70-100% in MILEAGE IMPROVEMENT," NOT fuel costs. You based your math on the latter:
"100000miles/20mpg=5000 gallons
5000gallons*2.90/gallon= 14,500 dollars/year on fuel
saving 70% of that means you save $10,150 per year per bus." ~andy
But what does 70% mileage improvement really mean?
Let me use your figures for purpose of comparison. Again, hypothetically, assume the bus gets 20 MPG normally. A 70% mileage improvement with the hybrid system means that it gets 34 MPG, meaning 14 MORE MPG than before. 14 more MPG / 20 MPG originally = 0.7 = 70% mileage improvement.
Now, 100000miles/34 mpg = 2941.18 gal
2941.18 gal*2.90 per gallon = $8529.41 dollars/year on fuel
$14,500 dollars/year with 20 mpg - $8529.41 dollars/year with 34 mpg = $5970.69 savings/year.
$112,500 hybrid system premium / $5970.69 savings/year = 18.84 years.
Clearly, 70% mileage improvement does not translate into 70% savings in fuel costs. I know what I'm talking about when it comes to the term "mileage improvement" because a) I own a hybrid (Honda Civic Hybrid) and b) I discussed it lengthily on GreenHybrid.com forums.
Again, I will reiterate that hybrids only make sense when their premiums can be offset within a couple years by fuel savings, within the life of their original batteries and electrical equipment. This is a great start, though.
Guess a hybrid bus is more important than smaller class sizes and more teachers.
@Ben: they said they hope the savings from using less gas will allow them to spend more on education (which I should hope would go to reducing class size as one of the top priorities). As expensive as fuel has gotten lately, I'm sure the savings will not be small (though, as Engadget pointed out, it may still take a while to pay off the upgrades).
As I understand the benefits of hybrids, and assuming they incorporate regenerative braking, this could be great for buses in smaller areas, where they make many stops that are a short distance apart, or sit in urban traffic a lot. Look at the use case: the bus is out for an hour or two in the morning, making frequent stops and traveling a total of about 50 miles over two round trips (elementary school route, then high school route). It runs mostly on electric, so if the engine has to run at all, it can idle at peak efficiency the whole time. If there's stop-and-go traffic, regenerative braking recovers most of the energy spent, so the 50-mile figure doesn't go down too much. The bus plugs in for the school day, then runs the same two routes taking the kids home. You barely use any diesel, and your overnight charging comes at off-peak rates (I think most electric suppliers do charge commercial clients based on time-of-day, even if they don't charge consumers differently). I think this is pretty much the best possible use of a plug-in hyrbid. I hope it works well for them, and spreads to a national program.
"The buses cost $225,000 each, twice that of a normal bus."
Did I hear that correctly? That means the state pays an extra $112,500 per hybrid bus over a normal bus.
Let's say they do indeed get about 85% improvement in fuel economy, an average of what the guy said between 70-100% improvement. Say for instance a normal bus gets 20 MPG, a hybrid bus gets 20*1.85=37 MPG. Each bus logs 100,000 miles per year, which is a very, very high estimate for a bus that drives around city conditions say, 4 times a day. It would take 20 years to pay off the initial costs! By that time the batteries in the bus would have already need to be replaced twice, the electrical motor would need an overhaul, bringing another $10,000 into the picture. This doesn't even take into account the cost of charging the bus up nightly.
Assist-type hybrids like the one shown in the bus only make sense for high-mileage commuters (we're talking 1-2 hours of mostly highway commute) and only when they have premiums which can be paid off in a matter of a couple years (i.e
Your math is busted:
20mpg is bad dead wrong. Think more like 10.
100000miles/20mpg=5000 gallons
5000gallons*2.90/gallon= 14,500 dollars/year on fuel
saving 70% of that means you save $10,150 per year per bus.
Now, when you account for the fact that buses actually get about 10mpg (std fleet bus is a non-turbo International at around 8 liters feeding an everchanging automatic), you save $20,150 per year per bus, worst case scenario (70%). Upping that to 85% saved, then you get $24,650 saved per year per bus which is a payoff time of just over 4 years.
They're still overpaying for these buses though. This doesn't DOUBLE the cost of a bus which is already in the 100's of thousands of dollars.
Short answer - this is a net negative cash proposition for the school. Details follow:
School busses don't drive 100K miles per year. According the the FHA, the average is 8K/ year, with some states racking up 15K/year:
http://www.nasdpts.org/paperBusReplacement.html
Given:
- The fuel savings is only good for 50-75 miles per day (there's no way that you're going to get 6 hours of charging time in the middle of the day).
- There are about 180 school days per year (D of Ed)
- Beyond 100 miles per day, they have minimal fuel savings (20% is typical for most hybrids in the real world)
- Baseline non-hybrid fuel economy is 10mpg
- Energy cost savings is 85% (which seems very high; I'd bet it's more like 50% because electricity ain't cheap and diesels are already pretty efficient)
- Diesel cost is $2.50/gal (schools pay less than the rest of us due to negotiated rates, taxes, etc).
Average daily milege is 8000miles/180days=44 miles - so it can run in battery mode all day.
Non-hybrid daily fuel is 44 miles/10MPG=4.4Gal or $11/day
Hybrid energy cost is $11*(1-85%) = $1.65
Hybrid savings is $11-$1.65 = $9.35
Hybrid savings per year = $9.35*180days = $1683
Number of years needed to make up $112,500 cost adder = 66.8
Average life span of a bus = 15 years
Even if the district puts 15K miles/year on its buses and manages to stay on battery power all day, they won't get to break even. They need to get the cost of the add-on down to about $10K for this to really make sense.
Personally, I think it would make much more sense for them to use biodiesel. There's a freaking plant in Lakeland (an hour or less away). They could cut their fuel costs down to a third or at the very least, I would think half of their current costs withouth having to pay double the money to replace the busses until they need to upgrade the busses and car companies actually put out plug in hybrids that are actually worth the money. First 50 miles fuel effeciency increase is pure B.S.
We drive plug-in Toyota RAV4-EV, all-electric, no gas, no oil, every day.
Our rooftop solar system produces more energy in the day than we use to charge up the EV at night.
That's driving free. 170,000 miles of oil-free Toyota RAV4-EV driving in the last 4 years (before that, EV1, HondaEV and RangerEV) means 8,000 gallons of gas saved, more than $16,000 which paid for our solar system.
And we get our household electric "for free".
Why not let everyone who wishes to do so, "live oil free"??
All it takes is the plug-in car, that finances purchase of the solar system.
Join the campaign for plug-in cars and an end to oil company lying and profiteering!
http://EV1.org
http://PlugInAmerica.com
http://SetAmericaFree.org
$225k for a school bus? I thought $110k was wayy too much, though I suppose with liability concerns, limited mass-production and whatnot.. but still, the engineering of a hybrid system, without all the space constraints of a car, how much of that extra $100k or so is extra battery?!
But I'd think that bus transportation is probably the best possible case scenario for a serial hybrid plugin vehicle, assuming regenerative braking of course.
Ooo, I hope I get to ride one of those this school year!
Why not update the old schoolbus design also?