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HomeMy WebLinkAboutItem III _ SAB Hybrid BusesHeavy Duty Bus Procurement — Request Support for purchase of 2 hybrid Heavy Duty Transit Buses with CARES Act Funds. (The Transit Advisory Board supports). GO Transit currently has four 2010, two 2013, seven 2018, and 3 2019 heavy duty buses for a total of 16 buses. A heavy duty transit bus has a useful life of 12 years. We need to replace the four 2010 buses in 2022. The procurement, production and ultimate delivery of a transit bus takes approximately one year. Therefore; we need to start planning for this procurement. We currently have previously awarded grants to replace two of the 2010 buses with clean diesel buses. Clean Diesel buses currently cost around $500,000 based on the state contract. WisDOT has a five year contract for heavy duty bus procurements that we are able to purchase off of. The contract offers clean diesel, CNG and hybrid buses. Purchasing off a state contract generally offers cost savings, reduces the amount of staff resources needed and improves delivery time and audit compliance. Our 2018 and 2019 clean diesel buses are performing very well. Each year diesel buses get cleaner and more efficient. Our 2018 and 2019 buses are performing well. MPG on these new buses is better than our 2010 hybrids. Comparing our 2010 40' hybrid buses vs 2018 40' clean burning diesel buses over a 2 month period the 2018 buses are getting 5.4 MPG's & the 2010 are getting 4.9 M PG's The new buses are also much cleaner as they have an after treatment system that cleans the exhaust before it is emitted. We have received a little over $4 million in CARES Act funds. We believe this is an opportunity to invest in a couple hybrid buses. The hybrid buses will give us a chance to test how hybrid technology has advanced and how it may work for us. Generally, it is hard for us to justify hybrid buses as they cost 50% ($750,000 each) more than a clean diesel bus, have very expensive repairs if equipment fails and the city's budgets are extremely tight. However; these extra grant funds give us an excellent opportunity to evaluate newer hybrid bus performance. Eau Claire has experienced that their newer hybrid buses get about 2.8 better MPG than their clean diesel buses. Some more information to consider as I know there is interest in electric vehicles. We have concluded that electric buses are not feasible for us at this time for a number of reasons. - They cost almost 100% more than a clean diesel bus and 25% more than a hybrid. They also require expensive charging infrastructure. We do not have the budget for this. - They have not been well tested in northern climates. Madison and Duluth are currently testing these. They have not had good experience so far. The buses are down over half the time. Auxiliary heaters are needed that are usually fueled by diesel. The reliability of and maintenance costs of electric buses is not well documented yet. - Currently, the electric buses don't have the needed cycle life to last all day w/o charging - Electric buses are currently not on the state contract so we would have to invest heavily in putting together a bid with limited resources Electricity is often produced by coal so the environmental benefit is questionable. It is potentially cleaner at the source of use but not necessarily overall. - Our opinion is by our next purchase in 2025 we will have better information on the performance of electric buses in a cold weather climate to base our decisions on. The costs for electric buses and infrastructure should come down as well. Additionally, by that time, electric buses may be on the state contract as well.