WWSD electric bus (WWSD)
WWSD electric bus (WWSD)
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Thanks to funds from the Department of Energy's Air Quality Clean Diesel Electric School Bus Grant the Walla Walla School District will soon put its first all-electric school bus into service.

 The actual cost of the bus was not released

This bus is the first of three that the District will receive, the WWSD is one of, if not the first, District in eastern WA to receive them.

According to the WWSD, it will be used on local routes initially. The range of the bus, under ideal conditions, is said to be about 300 miles. According to the District:

"Community members are invited to get a close up look at this new modern marvel during a ribbon cutting ceremony Tuesday, May 30 at 10 a.m. at the SE Washington Transportation Cooperative (1162 Entley St., Walla Walla, WA 99362)."

Drivers are receiving additional instruction on the operation of the new buses, no firm date as to when the first one will begin operations, but it's expected to be soon.

  Electric school buses are over twice the cost of diesel

According to The US Department of Energy, as well as a report from Seattle Climate.org, a typical electric school bus costs around $400K, as opposed to the average national cost of a diesel bus at $615K.

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The range of 300 miles under optimal conditions can be affected by weather. A 2020 report from insideevs.com indicates an ambient temperature drop from 50-60 degrees to between 22-32 degrees can result in up to a 37 percent loss in range.

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.

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