Protected: The Electric School Bus Effect

Zum recently attended Green California Schools & Community Colleges Summit, where our program manager and sustainability expert Pallav Prakash had the honor to engage  Gilbert Blue Feather Rosa Director of Sustainability and Adaptation, Modesto City Schools in conversation about paving the way for sustainable school transportation. With full understanding of electric vehicle’s potential, the right approach in place and the drive to act quickly, we can all reap the future benefits of the electric school bus effect. Below are some highlights from our discussion.

At Zum we are testing technologies for school transportation that no company has ever has. So I would say Zum is living into the future. The future is our children, and we owe it to our children.

Electric vehicle innovation will change the future

Since World War II there have been three critical innovations: computers, telecommunications and social networks, and email. However, all of them have had very limited impact on sustainability. Then there is the fourth innovation: electric vehicles. They will change and improve the future. They will change our environment. That’s why electric school buses are so important.

The Electric Bus Effect

So why are we talking about electric school buses now?

• They create healthier kids and communities
  • Less vibrations mean lower body fatigue
  • Quieter ambiance children arrive at school with calmer head space, eager to learn
  • Lowers risk of asthma and other risks to health
• They contribute to a healthier environment
  • Saves 70K lbs of CO, annually
  • Reduces 8K lbs of GHG annually
  • Equivalent to planting about 1500 trees
  • Removes 5 cars from the road
• They make the electric grid healthier
  • Fleets give back more energy than they consume during the day
  • Energy flowing into the grid at the height of consumption in the evening
  • Each electric bus has enough charge to provide electricity to 4-6 homes for one day

One of the key things of this electric school bus deployment is that it’s so quiet that our children can go to school with a calmer head space, and therefore be much more eager to learn. Over and above that, the health risks get reduced, and so do the benefits to the environment. You can see 70,000 pounds of CO2 saved annually.

The beautiful part is that each electric school bus that replaces a diesel bus is actually equivalent to planting 1,500 trees, and removing five cars on the road. So that’s the most interesting piece, and that is why I feel the impact is so unfathomable. 

So how do we make electric school buses a reality? 

1. Mindset Shift:

There are three keys to unlocking this potential, and that would be, first, the mindset shift. You have to understand that we generally can get into this thought process that EVs are very expensive. But look at it from a long term, or I would say cost versus benefit. So, while it may be expensive in the short term, in the long term this would change the lives of children. And therefore, the outcomes of learning and opportunities that are created outweighs the so-called “profit” that we would have made. And therefore, I would say that this mindset of profit versus benefit, I would say the [inaudible 00:06:58] should be given to benefit. 

2. The ecosystem must exist

By ecosystem, I mean the complete ecosystem. The batteries on electric buses have huge amounts of energy stored in them. We can use that energy when the load is high on the grid, when you need it in emergencies, when a school needs energy. We can provide energy from the buses to the hospitals. 

I would say that at Zum, we are an early adopter, and while we are moving into the future that we have imagined, I would say that who would have thought that a school bus company would be leading the charge? 

3.Committing to the long-game. 

This is a post-pandemic world, and the world has changed. While sustainability is all around us, we have to also understand that being committed in the long run and taking this forward is going to impact us far into our future. We need a multi-phased approach, we need a cohesive approach, and we need to have realistic expectations. For example, right now there are supply chain issues, there are manufacturing issues, and a whole lot of other things, but we need to get past that.

So I would like to sum all of these three up and say that we can achieve sustainability and use it as a leverage to benefit our children at scale, provided we are able to shift our mindset, we are able to build the infrastructure, and commit to a long game. Only then we will be providing our future children with cleaner, safer, more equitable access. This is what we envision for them and the future. 

Gilbert Blue Feather Rosas, Modesto City Schools 

I serve on two advisory councils, one for World Resources Institute (WRI) and for Generation 180 as well which promotes solar. My passion is definitely environmental justice for disadvantaged communities, and doing most of this through the electric school bus conversion. I also enjoy empowering students, to show them green career paths that are available to them. I’ve gained national recognition for two of the fastest electric school bus deployments in US history. The first was at Stockton Unified. In 2020 Stockton went from construction to buses arriving and charging in less than 11 months. 

In March of this year, I joined Modesto City Schools to help transition their 62 bus fleet as well. We broke ground on June 1st and on August 1st, we converted the transportation yard. We hope to have that finished by the first part of next year or around eight months. Modesto City Schools is the 25th largest school district in California by enrollment. The 30 bus order that we did was the largest in Bluebird’s history.

The road to school bus electrification is like the Autobahn

I’ve described electrification as this road. We’re right here, and where we want to go is across this road to where full electrification is. The problem is that that road is the Autobahn. And so there’s a lot of dangers, road hazards, considerations— things that we should do. 

I think that we have to look at who do I trust to design this thing? What utility upgrades am I going to need on my site? Who are the champions within the district administration? How will we finance or support all of these processes that we’re going to build? Who will project manage it? What bus manufacturer are we going to use? What chargers are we going to use and do we know all the compatibility issues? And then also, short-term or long-term conversion strategies. 

And then not to mention: the RFP process. How are we going to procurement to do all these different things? 

Choosing the right partners

If you can imagine, again, the road scenario, I think that we have to pick partners along the way of our path for electrification. And what these partners do is rather than running across the road when we think it’s safe, or picking a direction and just blindly going through, I think we have to build a bridge over this Autobahn. So who in our district is supporting it? That’s the first pillar that would build this bridge. Also, what utility upgrades are we going to need on site? Do we have a good relationship with our utility company to be able to use them and know all their resources? 

The other is what other partners can we have, like World Resources Institute or Center for Transportation in the Environment? They’re a 30 year veteran, a nonprofit that’s worked on rapid school bus deploying. The other is grants and financing options. So again, who’s going to do all the paperwork? Who’s going to help with these options? How do we get support with that through our district? The other would be construction management. Who’s going to manage this project and who has had the experience to get it done right away? The other would be a bus supplier. Which bus you choose and what supplier or vendor that will back you up in those things is very important. Not to mention charge management— the charge management end of it is extremely important because there’s so many variables. Smart chargers, dumb chargers, AC level two, DC fast chargers, what’s the right mix? 

Now is the time

I think what I want to point out is that there’s a wave of funding and now is the right… Electric buses are the right idea at the right time right now. Funding has never been more available. We’ve got EPA, we’ve got Moyer funds, VW funds, all your different state funds that you have, Air District France, and there’s just a lot of opportunities. But I would caution everybody that we’re at a tsunami of funding, and I think that it isn’t something where you have plenty of time and you can wait and see how things pan out. I think that, to me, the rough definition of sustainability is what you’re willing to do individually and corporately to create a greener future.

I think that like a smoker that stops smoking, your lungs heal. Well, I think the same is true for this electric school bus time. As you change out to electric school buses, the air will get better. We saw it in COVID times, where the pollution went down even in LA. And so I think that this is the right time right now to step ahead. 

I think investigating options like Zum and all the different options that are out there, all the different funding capabilities, I think there’s never been a better time. 

Advice for School Administrators 

It’s okay to be out front. It’s okay to lead the way. It’s okay to be a champion. I’ve seen kids, students actually push a solar initiative to get things done. And I’m learning that this is a very close-knit community of people that are actively trying to work on the environment. We can choose to work anywhere and do anything, but I think teaching our kids the right thing, being good stewards with what we have and doing it, I just tell myself, “Don’t slow down.” I’ve taken breaths in between and rested in between and second guessed myself. And this is a good atmosphere. It’s a good environment, it’s a good cause.

You’re the one. So, I need you, as a district and as a champion, to envision yourself being in this role and writing your own story of how you’re going to get it done.

I think you have to be tenacious. To quote Zig Ziglar: “If you don’t sacrifice for what you want, then what you want becomes the sacrifice.”