The Richmond School District just welcomed two electric school buses to its fleet on Tuesday morning.
Jonathan Ho, manager of energy and sustainability at the Richmond School District, told the Richmond News that they are now waiting to get the insurance papers ready and later go through training with the bus manufacturer.
Once everything is good to go, these two electric buses are expected to hit the road this fall.
According to Ho, the buses might take six to eight hours to charge. But once fully charged, they could run up to 200 to 230 kilometers depending on the weather.
“From the students’ perspective, they won’t know the difference, other than lack of sound,” said Ho.
The News reported earlier that the Ministry of Education had given $60,000 towards the electric bus purchase and $50,000 for electric charging stations.
Although the local school district received funding from the provincial government, Ho said his team still carefully monitored the costs before switching from diesel buses to electric ones.
For example, Ho explained, bus operators for diesel buses would have to pay for carbon offsets, carbon tax, and diesel costs. Diesel buses also have higher operating and maintenance costs.
After doing all the math, Ho’s team figured out that for a period of four to six years, they could get a positive payback on the electric cars.
