Narrator: This all-electric school bus cost
nearly $400,000 to build.
It's an American icon with a twist —
which means more of this ...
... and less of this.
Nicholas: Now I can have kids completely walk
all the way around the bus and not get coughed on,
as we say, by our buses.
Narrator: For more than a century, America's kids
have traveled to and from school in polluting yellow buses.
The fumes from these diesel buses
are linked to serious health and environmental problems,
and opponents want them gone.
But to replace America's entire fleet
could cost as much as $200 billion.
So can the country afford to turn its yellow buses green?
And what's the true cost
to the health of America's school kids if it can't?
Bonnie Rocha and her husband, Nicholas,
took delivery of their first electric school buses in 2021.
Bonnie: There's no emission smell.
There's no annoying, just, oil smell to it.
It's just leather seats and children.
Nicholas: I could literally stand at the back end of the bus
with this thing running and not have to cough and sneeze
and not get blasted with a bunch of fumes,
like some of our other buses.
Narrator: They drove diesel buses for years
between the schools here in Fairfax, Virginia.
But they don't miss them.
Nicholas: It's kind of frightening to see that going into our air
and knowing our kids are going to be breathing that
when they walk through the school buses.
Narrator: Fairfax County
has the second-largest school bus fleet
of any county in the US.
Around 140,000 students travel
on more than 1,600 buses every day.
Together, they travel more than 17 million miles each year.
That's about 682 trips around the Earth.
Fairfax has eight electric buses now,
with at least 10 more on the way.
Nationwide, only 1% of all school buses on American roads
are battery-powered.
Nicholas: I mean, we're starting out the shallow end of a pool.
We haven't quite reached the high dive yet, jumping in yet.
So we've got to start small before we can start going big.
Narrator: But Fairfax County,
and the rest of America, needs to dive in at the deep end
if it wants to meet the targets on emissions
and prevent health problems linked to air pollution.
We'll come back to that later.
One of the main reasons for starting small is the price tag.
Regular diesel buses
cost somewhere between $110,000 and $$130,000.
But a shiny new all-electric bus
can cost as much as $400,000.
Multiply that by the 480,000 school buses on the road today,
and you get the eye-watering national bill of $192 billion.
Dominion Energy, a regional power company,
covers the difference in sticker prices
of the electric buses.
They also supply the charging points, one for each bus.
The company plans to expand to 1,000 electric school buses
on the roads in Virginia by 2025,
with costs covered through increases
to their customers' electricity bills.
But Dominion can't do this without the approval
of Virginia's state legislature.
So far it's failed three votes.
Meanwhile, in Fairfax, the drivers and staff
are still getting familiar with the new electric fleet.
Nicholas: Right here, it says I'm charging.
So, to stop a charge, you hit the red button,
wait for it to disconnect, then you pull it out.
Narrator: It can take up to three hours
for Bonnie and Nick
to fully charge a completely dead battery.
How much energy they use depends on the season.
Nicholas: On our normal runs, I come in at about 70%
during the summertime after just using the AC unit.
And then in the wintertime, I'm coming in at 40%
after my normal runs.
Narrator: Power supply isn't the only difference.
Let's take a closer look.
From the outside, the buses seem similar.
But from the moment the driver sits down,
the sounds, smells, and ride are all different.
And just listen to this.
Yeah, it's on and running right now.
As long as this little green light's on,
that indicates to us that it's started up and it's going.
Narrator: Each bus travels about 70 to 100 miles a day
over multiple runs in the morning and afternoon,
with time to charge in between.
Battery power gives the buses about a 130-mile range,
making them less ideal for smaller, rural districts
with a spread-out population.
Older diesel buses have a range over 500 miles
on a single tank.
Danielle also drives one of Fairfax's new-generation e-buses.
It's good for the environment,
and I was excited to just
venture into the new change.
It's part of the future.
Narrator: Underneath the hood,
the electric bus looks quite different
from its diesel cousin.
These bright-orange cables carry high-voltage electricity
from the twin batteries to the electric motor.
Basically, it doesn't have engine,
but it has a motor, an inverter, and a battery.
Narrator: When the new buses arrived in Fairfax,
their running costs were half those of diesels.
Depending on fluctuating fuel and electricity prices,
it's estimated that the electric buses
could pay for their additional build cost
over their lifetime.
All of Fairfax's new buses, diesel and electric,
came off the assembly line here in North Carolina.
Thomas Built Buses makes about 40% of the school buses
in North America, just over 15,000 a year.
The company has been making the classic yellow buses
for more than 80 years.
Its first electric bus, a prototype,
came out in the '90s.
But Thomas didn't start producing
the kind you see on the streets of Fairfax until 2018.
Kevin: We expect we'll pretty quickly,
and probably even within this year,
come to about 5% of our total business.
But E is growing pretty quickly.
And that's a trend that we're going to see continue,
to accelerate exponentially
over the years ahead, I would say.
Narrator: Here in Archdale,
workers build and attach the yellow bodies
to both electric and diesel chassis.
These are the giant batteries that power the electric bus.
Each bus has two of them,
accounting for up to 40% of the manufacturing cost,
a number well over six figures.
Workers on the line attach seats, mirrors,
and other parts to the chassis.
The bodies are painted the iconic yellow
before being lowered onto a frame.
Costs may well come down
as America scales up its electric bus production,
but the country is reliant on imports
for many of the critical materials.
You know, materials like lithium, cobalt, nickel,
all really important
for electric-vehicle batteries right now.
Here in the US, we are relying on sources abroad.
That probably adds an additional cost as well.
Narrator: Delays and price fluctuations are commonplace.
And there are questions over the environmental impact
of mining operations and working conditions
in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo,
where a majority of the world's cobalt comes from.
The government has stepped in to try and speed up
the transition to electric.
A 2021 infrastructure bill included $5 billion
for electric vehicles.
We have the technology to transition
to a zero-emission fleet.
Narrator: Half of that is dedicated
to helping schools buy and operate electric school buses.
And in 2022, the Biden administration set out plans
to invest in domestic battery production and recycling.
This is all designed to help the White House
meet its 2050 goal for the US to be net-zero
on greenhouse-gas emissions.
Building the buses is one thing.
Creating a grid with enough charging stations
is quite another.
In the US, EVs can
access just under 48,000
public charging stations,
averaging less than
three ports at each one.
In comparison, there are more
than 145,000 gas stations
with multiple pumps.
Infrastructure upgrades might include
new transmission lines, transformers,
and conduits to bring power to the chargers.
President Biden announced $5 billion in funding
over the next five years for new chargers,
targeting a goal of 500,000 new ones by 2030.
Electric school buses are expensive,
but few parents would put a price
on the health and safety of their kids.
This is Michelle Uberuaga.
She's a member of Moms Clean Air Force,
a campaign group with more than 1 million members.
She lives in a small town in Montana.
Her children don't take the bus
but have to pass through a line of idling diesel buses
every morning and afternoon.
My kids kind of get to walk the gauntlet
through the diesel fumes to get to their playground.
And it's really, I think once you notice, it's insane.
Narrator: Thanks to Michelle's campaigning,
Montana is expecting its first electric bus
at the end of 2022.
The EPA classifies diesel fumes as a likely carcinogen,
and children's lungs are more susceptible
to pollutants than adults.
And air pollution from all sources
has been linked to diseases like asthma.
One study claims asthma costs society
over $56 billion per year
through medical costs and lost work time.
But for Michelle, the higher cost
of the electric school buses are worth every cent.
Michelle: When you're in a community, and you can see the pollution,
and you can see your kids coughing and being impacted,
it's a lot easier to understand what those costs are.
Narrator: Back in Fairfax,
Nick prepares for his afternoon school run.
So when we're checking under the hood,
we're checking all of our fluid levels,
making sure all our levels are good.
In a diesel bus, you'd be pulling out and checking the oil.
Narrator: If every school bus in the US was electric,
it would save an estimated 5.3 million tons
of carbon pollution every year.
But in 2021, fossil fuels like coal and oil
were still responsible for 61% of the electricity
generated in the United States.
And if the source of the electricity isn't clean,
can we really claim the buses using that electricity are?
Still, change is underway.
And on the streets of Fairfax, it's already being felt.
Danielle: I have my own kids who I'm looking out for,
and now I have my bus kids, who are pretty much like my own.
And I can make sure they're healthy and they're safe,
and I can look after them.
So it's really nice.
This is one more thing that we can look out for them on.