Havre schools add two electric buses to fleet

Havre Public Schools just added two new electric buses to its fleet, which the district's Transportation Department service attendant and trainer, Allen "Woody" Woodwick said will save the district a significant amount of money and improve their operations.

Woodwick said the buses have a range of about 100 miles, only take an hour to charge and are easily handling two of their local routes even at -20 degrees, and at less than a quarter of the fuel costs they would have for their diesel buses.

"And that's just the fuel costs. We also don't have to change 16 quarts of oil, or a filter, or flush the transmission fluid, your brakes don't wear out as quickly," Woodwick said. " ... So far, they've been working great."

He said the buses drive about the same as the diesel-powered ones but are also far quieter and the only fuel they need other than electricity is some diesel for the auxiliary heating system, which helps keep the back half of the bus warm in the frigid Havre winters.

The buses were purchased with the help of a grant from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, one funded by a settlement with Volkswagen during the Dieselgate scandal in 2015, which paid 85 percent of the almost 1 million dollars it cost to get the two buses, their charging stations and the wiring work necessary for the bus garage to accommodate them.

"Montana's DEQ is proud to help fund the first electric school buses in the state through the Volkswagen settlement," DEQ Energy Bureau Chief Dan Lloyd said in a press release Wednesday. "Our grant program helps make clean school buses affordable for Montana communities such as Havre. Electric school buses can save on maintenance costs and help to lower harmful emissions for students."

Lloyd said that, after extensive research, the school district decided to purchase the buses from the Lion Electric Company out of Canada, which manufactured the buses and specializes in constructing electric vehicles; He added that the compnay was enormously helpful teaching the school's bus mechanics how to work on them and advising local emergency services how to deal with a potential accident.

Woodwick said the batteries in the buses are extremely secure, with systems that will cut power and shut it down in the event of a crash and only an exceptionally bad wreck could damage the battery, but it's important to be prepared and safe so the company's assistance was greatly appreciated.

The batteries also have an eight-year warranty on them, he said, so the company would cover a lot of the maintenance costs in the event of some kind of defect.

He said he and his staff test drove the new buses on their closed course trying to deliberately put them into a skid, and they turned out to be extremely surefooted.

Woodwick said the buses have noise generators so vehicles on the road can hear them coming, and the tone they use is customizable, which might be interesting to experiment with at some point.

He said he's heard of some schools making their buses play their school's theme song, or Christmas music around the holidays, but for now they are going to stick with the default sound.

Overall, he said, drivers are adjusting to the new buses very well, and while some of the students don't really care about the change others are excited to see the new buses, so its been a positive reception.

As for the future, Woodwick said, they are going to look at getting grants for a couple more buses through the Build Back Better Plan, but he stressed that they aren't planning to replace the whole fleet.

He said gasoline- and diesel-powered buses are better for certain applications than electric buses, even beyond the issue of range, and having all three as tools in the tool box is the most efficient way to go about things.

He said having this mix of buses also allows them to make data comparisons between the three when it comes to things like maintenance cost, fuel use, performance and other things, which they and the state are tracking.

Woodwick said because Havre is the first public school district, to start using electric buses a lot of people around the state are interested to see how everything goes and having a mix of buses to compare them to will make Havre a good case study for others in the future.

He said things are going well so far and if they end up being able to get two more buses they may get ones with bigger batteries and longer range, but the technology is advancing quickly so things may look different by the time that day comes.

"I think there will be more in our future," he said.

He said the biggest barrier to getting more electric buses is infrastructure, but that is not an insurmountable challenge.