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US cities pay too much for buses

(www.bloomberg.com)
355 points pavel_lishin | 3 comments | 26 Sep 25 13:57 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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myrmidon ◴[26 Sep 25 14:24 UTC] No.45386847[source]▶
I think this shows one of the downsides of trade barriers very well: You get stuck with undesirable industries (diesel bus manufacturing), binding capital and labor better used elsewhere (and you easily end up with underperforming, overpriced solutions, too).

But I'm curious how much this actually affects transport costs. If such a bus is used 12h/day, then even overpaying 100% for the vehicle should get outscaled by labor + maintenance pretty quickly, long before the vehicle is replaced...

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mrits ◴[26 Sep 25 14:33 UTC] No.45386958[source]▶
What is wrong with diesel bus manufacturing? Just the exhaust pedestrians have to breath in? It seems near the bottom of the list for things we'd need to solve for carbon emissions.
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uxp100 ◴[26 Sep 25 14:35 UTC] No.45386985[source]▶
My experience is tainted by the fact that the battery electric busses are new and the diesel busses are (comparatively) old, but our battery electric busses are far more comfortable to ride. Diesels are uh, jerky. Maybe the drivers fault, but that’s how it is.
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1. SoftTalker ◴[26 Sep 25 19:50 UTC] No.45390355[source]▶
It's probably more the brakes than the engine. Diesel engines don't provide much of an engine braking effect (unless fitted with additional mechanisms a/k/a "Jake Brake" to provide this) so the vehicles use friction brakes any time they need to slow down, which can be jerky especially with air brakes. Electric buses would have regenerative braking which is probably smoother.
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2. maxerickson ◴[26 Sep 25 21:44 UTC] No.45391333[source]▶
They use hydraulic retarders in the transmission rather than engine brakes.
3. rsynnott ◴[27 Sep 25 08:33 UTC] No.45394100[source]▶
The vibration of the running engine is a big part of it. Very noticeable on diesel-electric battery hybrids; the whole feel of the thing changes when it's running on battery power.