The maintenance costs are only marginally higher per the report at $1.33 FCEB vs $1.15 BEB , $2.37 for Hybrids and $1.28 for Diesel (with additional public health costs for respiratory illnesses), the sample size(5x5) is too small to draw any meaningful conclusion on infrastructure costs or even reliability given the limited experience in operating anything not diesel.
Economics of hydrogen in CA are also complicated given our on-off approach to hydrogen infrastructure[2] for both personal and commercial vehicles but there is some progress on commercial side at least last year [1].
Hydrogen is not everyone but there are use cases for it.
The uptime (i.e. the refueling time) is an key factor [4]. Battery operated vehicles need a lot of downtime for charging thus you will need more vehicles for the same coverage. Fast charging can help but impacts battery life and thus TCO.
All green public transit are expensive. It is not a easy choice for administrators, should they improve coverage/ service frequency etc for their residents who need transit the the most or better air quality and less noise pollution for all of them.
Remember Fuel Cells are far cleaner for the air much more than BEV also, because it needs oxygen from the air FCs purify the air to do so. Kind of like having a big vacuum on the road in addition to not emitting direct pollutants[3]
[3] Ignoring tire dust, it is problem for all vehicles of course, that is independent of propulsion systems
[4] Even for personal vehicles it can be a decision factor when considering going green, as an owner of a Mirai with no easy access to EV charging stations I have benefited from being to refuel like a gar car.
If I'm reading that right the Battery Electric busses had the lowest maintenance costs? The need to charge is a potential issue, but at the same time busses do lots of low speed stop and go where battery systems are most efficient. As long as the bus has enough capacity for an entire day and can be recharged overnight it seems like an ideal solution, minus of course the up-front cost of the bus. Lower fuel costs, no noxious pollutants, less noise, lower maintenance, there is a lot to love.
An other option BEV busses give is hybrid trolleys, that way once a popular line gets fixed you can add overhead lines to it and later upgrade it to tram more easily.
It also means charge is a matter of having overhead lines which can be added as hoc (as overhead docking stations) to end-of-line stops, letting the bus juice up for some time before it runs the route back.
It is likely that new models had higher costs, including maintainers becoming familiar. Long-term, electric is unquestionably cheaper to fuel and maintain, assuming they are built to the same standards and scale as outgoing diesel models
I wonder about the added wear on roads that comes with so much added weight. That is the kind of cost that is easy to put in someone else's bucket until it impacts everyone. One of the roads near here was closed for a while putting a large amount of truck traffic on another road. It is impressive how quickly ruts have formed in a relatively short period of time from what I assume is a combination of increased traffic and the increased weight.
A typical diesel or natural gas city bus has a curb weight between 20,000 and 33,000 lbs[1]. An electric bus I found lists a curb weight of 28,000 lbs[2]. It doesn't seem like extra road wear is going to be a major issue.
Lowest short term maintenence cost. Until the battery is destroyed in a couple of years.
Charging a fleet of 100 buses overnight looks like a huge infrastructure issue to me. 100 charging ports, huge grid connection, substation etc. That is if the local grid even has capacity. Anyone who has tried to open a factory will know that is not always the case.
EV batteries have been performing much better than dying after just 700 cycles. Also, power is generally cheapest overnight when there is excess grid capacity. People with variable electricity pricing and battery banks make money by charging overnight and releasing power to the grid during peak hours. Commercial vehicles typically get more like 6,000 cycles out of a battery pack.
I think the case for using hydrogen today is pretty weak, but a lot of the details for why it's a bad choice are (as you say) exacerbated by the one-off deploys of the technology. If you were testing gas busses and needed to truck gasoline in just for your busses you would expect the numbers to get worse too.
My view is that if you want a clean alternative today you'd go with electric and also the tech seems worth continuing to develop for other applications. I also think that public transit doesn't seem like it plays to the strengths (such as they are) of hydrogen.
Economics of hydrogen in CA are also complicated given our on-off approach to hydrogen infrastructure[2] for both personal and commercial vehicles but there is some progress on commercial side at least last year [1].
Hydrogen is not everyone but there are use cases for it.
The uptime (i.e. the refueling time) is an key factor [4]. Battery operated vehicles need a lot of downtime for charging thus you will need more vehicles for the same coverage. Fast charging can help but impacts battery life and thus TCO.
All green public transit are expensive. It is not a easy choice for administrators, should they improve coverage/ service frequency etc for their residents who need transit the the most or better air quality and less noise pollution for all of them.
Remember Fuel Cells are far cleaner for the air much more than BEV also, because it needs oxygen from the air FCs purify the air to do so. Kind of like having a big vacuum on the road in addition to not emitting direct pollutants[3]
[1] https://www.portofoakland.com/port-of-oakland-celebrates-hyd...
[2] https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/zero-e...
[3] Ignoring tire dust, it is problem for all vehicles of course, that is independent of propulsion systems
[4] Even for personal vehicles it can be a decision factor when considering going green, as an owner of a Mirai with no easy access to EV charging stations I have benefited from being to refuel like a gar car.