I drive an electric BB in North Dakota. Frankly, I love it when it is not too cold. When it is 15 degrees or less, it can get frigid inside the bus. When it is at that temperature, the energy consumption is about two miles per actual mile or more. Today we had an actual temperate of -14 below. The performance was not affected, except for the interior temperature. The acceleration rate is incredible. If the bus could maintain a comfortable temperature when it is cold out, I would be its number one fan. Right now, I feel it is a bus designed for the southern part of North America. I noticed posts regarding no engine noise. I only hear noise from its tires. At first, it was a learning curve. I had to learn to read the instrument panel to determine if it was on. Now it is natural. As one person said, they like to hear what is going on with their bus students. I like that, too. The BB electric is the perfect bus for those drives who want to listen to what is going on in their bus. Blue Bird, please address the heating issue for busses in cold climates. My bus has the cold weather package. It helped some. It is not enough.
It depends on the temp out. It reads 82 to 85 on the digital miles to go gauge. When it is below 0 I get 40 to 50. When it is warm out I will get 65 to 75 miles on a charge. I did get down to 0 miles "to go" once and still made it 10 miles back to the barns. There appears to be a reserve charge? Hope that helps. @@kennymartin379
Have you had your maintenance people look at the heating system? Is it drawing the recommended amperage? If the system should be drawing 30 amps, but is only using 15 amps, you might have one bad heating element for instance, or a tripped over temp safety device. I agree that most heating systems are designed for 0F and above, but they should not degrade so much at -14F. Also check to see if they are taking in more outside air than required. Perhaps if it is trying to reheat the inside air, instead of taking in additional outside air and trying to heat that, it would solve your problem.
@@kennymartin379 my bus depends on weather and how much I'm using the heaters. My route is 22 miles every morning with 92 miles of range on the motor. If I use the heaters full blast all morning I can end my route with 60-55 miles of range left.
I feel like school buses still kinda look old (even the new ones) and have basic features. This not only looks cool and is electric. I hope in the future all school buses will be like this
I disagree, electric is less efficient because no matter what, you still need fuel to power chargers, and as for them looking old I disagree, old busses look far better than new ones
I use your youtube videos as my white noise to help me sleep at night. also I am autistic. i like 15 passenger vans, paratransit buses, and Airbus A321 aircraft as a hobby. i also like Yamaha stereo equipment.
Na he has a point. I believe the bus is quiet but this footage does have noise cancellation on the audio, that kind of faint garbling to the way his speech sounds is a dead giveaway. That's why cell phone calls in public all come through sounding like that. I don't think they're trying to pull a fast one either though, it's more likely that this was literally just filmed on a cell phone.
Big big fan of ALL KINDS of Bluebird Buses.. All kinds. International, SBCVs, MicroBirds and all kinds of Bluebird Visions, including these All Electric Visions.. Up here in New York City and in various school districts in Long Island, I haven't seen any Electric Visions yet, we still have Cummins-Allisons, Gasoline and Propanes. My two adopted daughters start school and I wish one day they ride in one of these Bluebird All Electric School Buses.
As the average combustion powered bus in most fleets are 15-20 years old, I'd say these battery electric buses should last 30-40 years easy which should justify the higher initial price tags. They are only driven 3-hours in the morning, 3-hours in the afternoon five days a week and sit the rest of the time so these should last a very very long time. As for operating in cold and very cold climates, I see nothing wrong with having an onboard propane or natural gas fired Espar Auxiliary heating system which uses only enough power to run the fans. This way the buses electric heating elements can be turned off in winter to conserve battery and extend range.
C.A.S. Transportation (My fictional bus company) owns 10 of those Electric BBs. Although they spec'd them with black front bumpers just to keep them as normal as possible. Half of them are W/C accessible.
As a kid I genuinely enjoyed riding the bus. The late 90s Blue Bird flat noses we had were loud and grumpy, but they rumbled around town without a problem. I like the sound of diesel, and the fact that everyone knows a school bus is approaching just by the rumble and sound, even with the modern diesel busses we have here. This EV stuff is very expensive in comparison to conventional diesel busses, in addition to not being able to hear the bus, and making it more awkward as there is no rumble to reduce silence.
It would help if the amount of regeneration was adjustable so that you could mostly drive with just one pedal. One foot driving. Getting ICE buses off the road is a wonderful thing. My VW e-Golf has been a great everyday driver. Good work.
Well later in the far future after I'm retired, I'm interested in buying a retired school bus and making a motorhome out of it, and I would prefer a diesel kind because it can travel farther than electric kinds, and refueling the diesel bus would take way less time than recharging the electric bus.
This video is interesting, but it would have been so much better with higher quality sound. Don't rely on on-camera sound - invest in an external sound recorder and a lav microphone. $200 worth of equipment would do the trick.
Their website says it has a 90,000BTU heater. That's about 26kW so it's going to hugely affect range in the winter. They should really have a diesel or propane heater to keep the cabin warm.
@@oisiaa Thanks for info. My Bus Boss says that electric school buses are far away before implemented. More range is needed and charging stations for these buses is $$$. Just ain't gonna happen for years and years. Maybe in the warmer climate.......not where we get severe cold temps!
It's not a luxury bus, USB isn't needed. Maybe put your phone on battery saver halfway through the day or so. Also I could see kids sticking gum and stuff in them over time too. I'd say A/C should pretty much be a requirement in the southern half of the US though, it can actually start getting legitmately dangerous without too if it's above 90 F.
@@MisterMikeTexas USB just for the driver. My '21 Vision has a cigarette lighter that I use for charging my phone all day as it just sits in my glovebox
So whats the price differential on these vs diesel? Also what is the expected range? Charger requirements? The district that I drive for is in a heavy wind generating county (we have 200MW online) so there might be energy deals to be made if the capital investment isn't that much higher. I know I'd be interested in driving one if it could be sold to the boss and ultimately the district.
@@DJTFan2024 Less than my cat is responsible for, Karen. More birds are killed each year flying into stationary buildings than turbines. So fuck off. Oh and that's real cute upvoting your own idiotic comment. That's literally the only way you could have an upvote in the 4 minutes since you posted it. 🤣
7:42 "The body this bus has is exactly the same as our conventional buses." I understand for cost efficiency (electric school buses are still rare). Otherwise, why the same design? Yes R&D would cost more, but I would think with batteries in a 'skateboard' architecture, floor height could be reduced to something more like city transit buses. And fewer steps speeds up boarding & alighting
Just as a guess, I'd have to think it's because of existing infrastructure of most school districts. Districts that already have BB buses would likely be familiar with various parts and components not related to the electric motor or batteries, and would be able to replace/repair them easier than if it was all-new.
I like it when new tech doesnt stand out so much actually. Ya its cool to have modern features but the ultra-futuristic look most EVs have kinda drives me away as its going a tad too far..
Time will tell. The hard part is that with a diesel you get the better range, the heater & AC don’t really suck as much power since they are turning when the engine running & the heater is warm when then engine is warm. There’s a lot of benefits w a diesel bus where electric suffers.
My question is how well the heater work ,cost of operation, high way speed ,will it cook the kids in the accident by electrical , how big of a pain in the ass if the battery goes dead
There is internal cooling and heating systems to keep batteries at the correct temperature. Kids are already at risk being on a diesel school bus with a combustion engine, that's gasoline burning, i mean that is dangerous too lol. If for some reason you run out of battery, there are emergency portable chargers that can be brought to the bus. why im on youtube commenting on here i dont know :P
Penep, he said at least twice the electric bus has power. Electric motors produce more torque then internal combustion motors, so soon electric buses and electric big rig trucks will acclerate significantly faster then previous.
I remember having to get up on one when doing a power move from one district to the other and them old bb's would get up on it if you gave it the pedal. let's hope these eletric units can do the same, if I stomp down on it and it just kinda moves up there, than that's not safe to me. but if I stomp on it and it moves it's self out of the way quick, then it's good.
@@WhitfieldProductionsTV the problem was when they moved to electric throttles and the computer got to have a say in your inputs. I love driving the older C7 1st gen Visions my districts fleet has.
Good morning... what’s the GVWR for a full size, electric school bus with the extra metal frame and all 14 batteries , compared to a diesel school bus...
The GVWR is about the same as the diesel bus. The curb weight might vary a lot! It shows a 10,000 pound front axle and 23,000 rear axle, so about a 30,000 - 33,000 GVWR? Remember they are not using a 1,400 pound diesel engine and 450 pound Allison Transmission, the cooling system, and such. Also the 100 gallon fuel tank when full will be around 800 pounds.
They could even maybe add solar panels on to the roof. Or for those very cold & hot areas put a little APU propane or diesel generator's for heating or cooling I mean how much fuel does a Apu generator use anyways very little. Yeah I mean it does beat the purpose to have a full electric bus. But come on we need air conditioning and we need a heater source am I right or am I wrong.
@@allanallstar342 duh I know they're not going to charge the bus. I was just thinking of a way for the AC and heater to work without using the bus's battery system. Also one more thing it's a great idea to have all electric bus trucks trains and planes and all that kind of stuff. But until we have some kind of magical fuel that does not pollute good luck with that because it looks like the internal combustion engines jet engines oil coal natural gas ect are going to be here for a long time. One more thing I'm all for clean energy but like I said until that magical fuel comes we're going to be stuck with what we got.
What seems like a thousand years later and school buses haven’t been much refined. Listen to it rattle as the driver bounces along. Truly a tin can on wheels.
I want to know why the Wig Wag is tied up? It shouldn’t be. The purpose of those is to drop once the air pressure gets to 60. Not good Mr. Blue Bird guy.
Damn that's gonna be annoying for when they have to pick up kids all they can hear is the noise from the road and the kids they gonna have to become Otto from the Simpsons and listen to music all the time but I do have a question what about coming up to stop lights that are around curves and you can't see them and it is a busy road
I'm a school bus driver...I have my worries about this....I feel like electric buses will be good for where they are needed...but I hope this doesn't become the normal for school buses across the country...especially in areas that get extreme cold and snow...yeah good luck with them starting👍...i worked at a company that has the BB propane buses and it was hard to fuel and operate those in the winter and don't even get me started on the unleaded BB buses ...I'm in cold Chicago btw.....In the meantime I'm going to enjoy my conventional Diesel school buses....and some of those features to move the electric buses out of parking position are to much to keep up with and could do more damage than good if a step in the process Is missed or skipped...I don't know maybe time will tell🤷♂️
The general plan is no more diesel buses after 2030, so good luck keeping ahold of the older ones. California wants to replace all municipal busses with electric by 2040, and not allow any new diesel busses after 2030. In general, a heat pump can keep a California bus warm or cool without running a electric heater. In your area, electric heaters can consume a lot of battery power. Perhaps they can pre-heat the bus by plugging in at the school or bus parking area just before you drive them, powered from shore power. I am sure they will work great at least 3 months each fall and 3 more each spring. It is those other 3 months to worry about it. But the kids are dressed for cold weather, so the bus does not need to be heated to 65F, 55 should work fine. By the way it is much easier to start a unleaded gas bus engine than a diesel at -5F. Propane has another problem, it will freeze in the tank at a certain temperature, and not flow out. The liquid propane can be heated by the engine hot water and changed to a gas there, but not when the engine will not start. You can google the pressure of propane at -15F.
100% clean and quiet both on and off the bus. Same with the gasoline, CNG and propane powered buses. When working for a school district and bus company as a bus driver and attendant, you will need to remember to charge your bus if you have electric buses in your fleet.
I wish this man would use both of his hands on the wheel as he is driving. When he makes turns, he palms the wheel which is not safe. If you are doing to show us items, please make one of them safe driving.
@@davidmoser3535 yeah someone already made electric school buses and they a perfect idea. You wouldn't even need very big batteries because most of them only drive 20 miles. Wave goodbye to all the maintenance fuel cost.
@@davidmoser3535 I would make more sense than diesel. All that maintenance , the bus also has a lot of surface area on top, with solar panels they would probably not have to be plugged in at all. The cost of operation would be soley the driver.
I drive a school bus and would never drive an electric bus. I saw the batteries under them and thought about if they fought fire, which they do it would be gone very quickly. Nope won't drive one....
