Speaking from what I have heard through him, my dad sells schools busses. The company he sells for offers almost any fuel option you can think of, from diesel and gasoline powered, to CNG powered, to propane powered, to electric busses. And he has said that while he has had a few school districts buy electric busses for fixed routes, he has sold more of the flex-fuel busses (the CNG and propane) than he has electric.
He also said some of the people who were interested in the electric were pretty much only interested under the idea that they could make money off of it. The specific story he told was that this one school district thought that they could have the busses charging at certain times, and then sell the electricity from the batteries back to the grid at times when the price was high and/or on weekends and summer break. Only to immediately abandon the idea and go with traditional busses when my dad informed them that doing that would count as hours against the battery for the purpose of the warranty and you would run through your warranty in a matter of months.
CNG's always been real popular for fleet vehicles because it's a lot easier for the fleet operator to use their existing natural gas infrastructure to refuel. So any benefit they'd get from electric they can also get from gas.
I briefly looked at the CNG Civics back when I lived someplace that had gas. The main disadvantage was half the trunk was taken up by the larger CNG tank since it's less dense than gasoline (which would be a non-issue for a bus).
The engines also last forever because natural gas burns so clean.
Speaking from what I have heard through him, my dad sells schools busses. The company he sells for offers almost any fuel option you can think of, from diesel and gasoline powered, to CNG powered, to propane powered, to electric busses. And he has said that while he has had a few school districts buy electric busses for fixed routes, he has sold more of the flex-fuel busses (the CNG and propane) than he has electric.
He also said some of the people who were interested in the electric were pretty much only interested under the idea that they could make money off of it. The specific story he told was that this one school district thought that they could have the busses charging at certain times, and then sell the electricity from the batteries back to the grid at times when the price was high and/or on weekends and summer break. Only to immediately abandon the idea and go with traditional busses when my dad informed them that doing that would count as hours against the battery for the purpose of the warranty and you would run through your warranty in a matter of months.
CNG's always been real popular for fleet vehicles because it's a lot easier for the fleet operator to use their existing natural gas infrastructure to refuel. So any benefit they'd get from electric they can also get from gas.
I briefly looked at the CNG Civics back when I lived someplace that had gas. The main disadvantage was half the trunk was taken up by the larger CNG tank since it's less dense than gasoline (which would be a non-issue for a bus).
The engines also last forever because natural gas burns so clean.