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Jennifer Lewke — The Cost of Powering Electric Buses: The Naples Central School District in Ontario County is rural and has two electric school buses in its fleet. I'm going to be doing a full story with them next week but here is some early information from the superintendent about the cost of powering the buses and how they held up over the winter: On Cost: "The district has carefully been tracking data on the cost to operate EV buses vs. diesel and the most current data tells us that daily operation of an EV bus is 3-5x more expensive than a diesel bus, dependent upon weather conditions, electric rates, and diesel costs which are far more predictable." On Function: "We have found that the performance of these buses diminishes significantly the further the temperature falls below freezing; this winter’s weather has been a true test. We have experienced challenges with heating the buses, along with an increased frequency/demand of charging during the day which drives up operating costs. Even in decent weather, these buses do not have the range for our longest bus routes, most athletic contests, or extra-curricular trips. While diesel buses provide us consistency and flexibility, we simply do not see the same outcomes with our EV buses and on the coldest of days, we cannot operate one or both buses due to range/heating issues."