The surprising powerhouse behind rapid V2X growth: electric school buses

I still find the older term vehicle-to-grid more useful here. The idea of the default being grid-to-vehicle but at some point a vehicle knows it is sitting long enough it can "loan" power back to the grid.

Communication needs to be involved (the vehicle has to switch "modes", the vehicle needs to negotiate the "terms" of the loan, such as that it needs to be 100% by a certain deadline such as "school pickup" or "end of workday", what sort of "interest" it expects back on the loan), but the interesting part is the power delivery that opens up. It can help grid operators smooth high demand periods. It can help vehicles spend less time at 100% charged and focus more on "charged just in time", now that we have a better idea about Lithium Ion batteries that time spent in 100% charged states are some of their worst wear and tear.

V2X is kind of the "IOT" meets "USB Power Delivery" next layer on top of V2G. It seems a lot more bogged down in the communications side of it because "everything" can mean a lot of things, but the overall goal of all that communications is still moving power from a battery to somewhere else over time (while also making concessions to get power back into that battery at a later time).

> "V2X technology, which lets vehicles feed power back into the grid"

Never heard this before. V2X used to be quite well-defined as a term in mobile communication.

The origin is that it's an evolution of the communication term M2M (Machine-to-Machine), which covers communication where none of the parties is a human (unlike other scenarios where a human is either on the originating (MO) or terminating (MT) end of a mobile connection).

Vehicle-communication was "branched out" into a separate term as it has a set of unique use-cases and requirements --> V2M (Vehicle-to-Machine)

Then it was expanded to local P2P connectivity to other vehicles (mostly not mobile network-based) --> V2V (Vehicle-to-Vehicle).

When it was expanded again to also include local connections to other "members of traffic", i.e. roadside units, traffic-lights, etc., with standards like see IEEE 802.11p gaining momentum and 5G came along as a potential cellular bearer for all of it, it was merged into a single term --> V2X (Vehicle-to-everything).

In this case it's not communication, it's using the school buses as power supply

From the article: > V2X technology, which lets vehicles feed power back into the grid, is currently concentrated among a small number of US companies. Some are focused exclusively on commercial or residential applications, while others cover multiple segments.

Weird that this is being conflated with electric traction but then again so is advertisements and crappy OTA updates and mass surveillance

It would dramatically raise the cost of school buses. School buses, as they are, are not acceptably accessible for the general public. They have only 1 door on the side and the passenger seating requiring climbing a couple of steep steps. They also don't have a bike rack on the front, and they usually don't have route displays on the front/side, either.

Also, school buses within a district are shared between elementary, middle and high schools, which is the reasons these schools have staggered starts. When California passed a law a couple of years ago that required high schools to start no earlier than 8:30am, that in turn forced elementary and many middle schools to start earlier.

Buses are used for field trips, for athletic teams (and any other school group needing to travel for an event/competition in normal cases. Some schools get charters if distance >x, but most public schools don't.), and more. There's not really a huge amount of downtime for a lot of the fleet, except in the evenings.

Finally, the reliance on bussing has been decreasing in many parts of the country over the past couple of decades. When I grew up (elementary & middle school in the 80s), everyone rode the bus unless they were close enough to walk or bike. Now, in many communities, the default is a parent/friend carpool. In denser cities, buses are barely required. The neighborhood elementary where my youngest attends in San Jose only has 2 short buses serving a school of >500 pupils because almost everyone lives within about a 1.5mi radius.

In my school district, and I suspect many across the country, the same school buses are used for high school (pick up around 7am), middle school (7:45) and elementary (8:30). The drop off times are similarly staggered. Many buses also do two runs for a single school for dense communities, or do “late bus” runs for dropping off kids after sports or clubs. Point being, the buses get plenty of use even with 3-4 hours of downtime in the middle of the day.

This is probably non-obvious if you've never interacted with the system, but school buses are not public transit buses and would be ill-suited

- They're much less accessible, as typically there's a separate route with a specifically accessible bus.

- they need to be immediately available and in the right spot the instant school lets out, which means the downtime is typically a little bit shorter than you would even expect so they can all be in place.

- they likely have MUCH lower milage-per-day specs, including things like general wear and tear and number of hours of continuous use.

In reality, You would likely have to rebuild from the ground up and go the other way around, starting with a mass transit system and then dedicating certain buses and routes to pick up and drop off

School buses are operated by schools solely for students. There is no requirement nor motivation to allow anyone else to ride. Doing so would mean making students would wait longer as resources are deployed to the wider public. Or at the same service level another part of their budget would have to be cut to fund busing for the general public. There's already a shortage of bus drivers caused by school districts offering notoriously low pay, split shifts, and no benefits.

City public transportation is operated by transit agencies who conversely do not have a mandate nor motivation to handle the morning rush to schools or the afternoon demand spike of schools letting out. US transit agencies have even tighter budgets compared with schools. Hence why riding a city bus could take you an hour to make a trip that takes 15 min by private car. That awful service level would never be accepted for student transportation.

Because people wouldn't dare let their kids go on public transport.

My dad used to be a school bus driver (among many other things, typical immigrant story).

One of the benefits of the down time is that since the hours are weird (2-3 hours in the morning, and then 2-3 hours again, 7-8 hours later in the day), means that if you didn't have downtime, you'd have to have two shifts of drivers, further increasing costs.

Having this downtime also allows for the drivers to get breaks (my dad would just come home and nap since otherwise he'd be up at 5:30am to get ready for the high schools) and return, and do a full day in one shift.

Just food for thought since this angle wasn't mentioned.

But I absolutely LOVE the idea of buying electric buses and using them as battery storage.

Feels like it would be a hard optimization problem. Not sure what else they would be doing either?

I'm amused that all of the responses focus on the differences; but none seem to cover why they have to be that way.

In general, I don't think there is a hard reason for it? My argument would include many of the cities that have public transit will happily utilize the transit busses and trains for some of the same reasons.

I think some of the more rural routes for schools will be a bit more than some transit authorities would want to cover? Though, that is probably a bit self fulfilling?

I don't see it as dumb at all. I have solar PV, but adding a 5.8kWh battery would cost over USD 2k / local currency equivalent. As a result, I frequently have to export solar to the grid (during low demand, mid day periods) and then buy it from the grid when it's already in high national demand (and priced accordingly). I also have a 13 year old car that our family is fast outgrowing. It's used once or twice a week mostly for shopping, and also for some occasional long drives to see family etc. The latter are the only times I'd be at risk of starting with low charge (easily avoided). My next car will almost certainly be an EV, or PHEV. I'm supremely eager to be able to leave it in the garage/on the driveway as a home battery that's an order of magnitude bigger than a standalone battery I would buy and then have to devote attic or closet space to (and have to accept a fire risk for). I'm effectively deferring several buying decisions (car upgrade, battery purchase) until I get a good V2G option that is an all-in-one solution.

School buses run on a fixed schedule. The utility subsidizes the purchase cost of the electric bus. I do agree without those features even just the battery wear would not make it worth it for the owner.