Friday, May 10, 2024
Little green
There's a while bus line that's now, as far as I can tell, fleeted with electric buses. The 11/R Line to be exact. They look light. Feel kind of like children's wind-up toys. Whenever they stop at a red light there's no sound at all and you wonder if they'll be able to start up again. So far they always have, but it's not winter yet.
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2 comments:
We just had a look at the RIPTA website where they're proudly showing off their fleet of 14 new e-buses. We watched the little video of their pantographic bus charger in action on a sunny day, of course. You're right there's no word about what will happen in winter or even on a stormy windy day and $22 million for 14 buses seems a bit much.
You might want to check out this article about the expense of electric school buses - no need to read the whole thing.
Then there's today's current favorite write-up about how the world's largest floating solar farm got destroyed (yet another example of the world in beta mode).
You're certainly right that 22 million for 14 buses sounds like a lot, more than inflation could account for. Plus in principle there are supposed to be savings from buying in bulk. I think JM Greer's idea of lenocracy--parties injecting themselves into processes where they have nothing to contribute--might have something to do with it.
The author of the article you linked is also onto something. The value of electric school buses--monetary and otherwise--is being pushed by government approval.
I'm sure some of the engineers working on things like this floating solar farm know that there are serious pitfalls to the idea, but don't want to lose their gigs.
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