New York officials mandated that all school bus purchases be electric by 2027, and parents are already thoroughly disgusted with the purchases so far. Apparently, New York officials think they are saving the planet with buses that freeze kids like popsicles.
Electric vehicles (EVs) are always a disaster from start to finish, with their short-lived, expensive, and toxic batteries, which are so dependent on slave and child labor in Africa and China, and they simply don’t work the way they are supposed to. That includes heating in the EVs during icy winter weather.
While the electric bus rule is to apply across the state of New York, parents in the Lake Shore Central School District are the ones vocally speaking out. WIVB News4 reported last week that parents are worried about their children’s health as bus drivers turn down the heat in the buses or even turn it off altogether as they try to conserve battery life. In fact, that is a recommended practice for EVs, which perform very poorly in the wintertime. And that is exactly why they should not be used to transport children to and from school in freezing temperatures.
Multiple parents called into the local outlet to highlight the problem and ask the reporters to call attention to it. With temperatures in New York frequently going below freezing, heated school buses can be an important factor in preventing children’s illness.
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Parents are giving their kids hand warmers, but it is hardly a replacement for a bus heating system. “The heaters on the bus run off the same electricity as the bus itself,” explained Scott Ziobro, a former school board candidate and parent of district schoolchildren. “They were told that it drains the battery capacity of the bus itself.”
Interestingly, in 2023, batteries in EVs in Norway were reported as failing in the cold weather. That is not an anomaly; that is typical. Even leftist USA Today admitted this December, “EV battery range plummets in cold weather.”
Charging Advisor confesses that colder weather can impact “EV battery performance, range reduction, and charging speeds.” And among its recommendations? “Use heated seats and steering wheel instead of cabin heating “ and “Set cabin temperature 2-3°F lower than usual.” Those New York parents were right. The heating in the electric buses really cannot handle severe cold weather.
WIVB provided more details on Lake Shore Central School District:
The district currently operates 23 electric buses, along with four full size diesel buses and 24 gasoline buses, according to superintendent Phil Johnson. The district was able to purchase 20 new electric school buses,over the summer using a $7.9 million federal grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
All of the buses operate in compliance with New York State Department of Transportation regulations, including required interior temperature standards, the district said.
Another issue, of course, is that EVs are liable to break down much more often than gas-powered cars. All of the parents who called in about EV school buses had at least one story of a breakdown. Chris Lampman insisted that his son had to stand outside in frigid weather after the bus broke down en route. “They deployed a substitute bus, and the bus was more than 30 minutes late. My son stood outside for over 35 minutes waiting for a bus that wasn’t coming,” Lampman accused.
Grandmother Lynn Urbino is angry, too. “My grandson came home from school last week when it was 23 degrees,” she told WIVB. “He said they didn’t have heat. He came in cold, and I told him, I said, ‘isn’t the bus warm?’ And he said ‘no, they can’t put the heat on because it drains the battery.'”
Yet more reasons for ditching not only electric buses, but EVs altogether.
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