Today's front page has a story about the new EV buses going into service on the Lancaster route.
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| Front page today |
Salem Reporter yesterday also had a story.
But the hype and EV mania is a little misplaced. The EV buses themselves are not bad, but the emphasis is wrongly placed with them.
From Salem Reporter:
In January this year, Salem Reporter reported that Cherriots received federal money through the “Low-No” emissions grant in 2020, 2021 and 2023. The grants amounted to $22.7 million and, in addition to the district’s investments, funded the purchase of buses and charging stations.
In a grant application, the agency said one electric bus would decrease Cherriots’ annual energy use by 5,234 gigajoules, equal to 87 years’ worth of gas for an average American car.
What matters is not so much the energy use and emissions of the Cherriots fleet, but is the energy use and emissions represented by drive-alone trips not taken.
Riders and boardings matter more.
Dedicated bus lanes, more riders, and more frequent service with dirty diesel buses would be more beneficial than merely swapping EV buses into existing service patterns. Things to get more ridership, not things to greenwash existing ridership, are best.
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The new EV gadgetry is neat to see, and it is nearly certain to be something we see more of. It's early adoption of something that will come to be more prevalent.
But there are reasonable questions about whether it is too early and whether all the hype is justified. There is some greenwash here, and we should refocus conversation and analysis away from EV mania and towards more ridership and better service.
1 comment:
Here's another way to think about this. Claims in project applications are generally best-case and rely on a chain of best-case assumptions. But let's just assume that the Cherriots claim is legit:
The energy savings on one bus is "equal to 87 years’ worth of gas for an average American car."
That's also equal to 87 drivers not driving for one year.
Are there ways to juice ridership more than boosting boardings by 87 riders per bus? That's not per trip, even. That's the total per bus. That doesn't actually seem very big.
87 years of gas is very large for an individual household, but that quantity, one year for 87 drivers, is tiny for a city of 175,000 (or a little more) and all its cars and drivers.
It would be good to read a better analysis of the emissions reduction and an equivalent of drive-alone trips not taken. What is the aggregate impact on and proportion of the city's emissions?
This, rather than the internal Cherriots "household," would be a better way to analyze the EV bus fleet transition.
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