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US cities pay too much for buses

(www.bloomberg.com)
355 points pavel_lishin | 1 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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kjkjadksj ◴[26 Sep 25 17:36 UTC] No.45389020[source]▶
Aren’t most busses CNG these days?
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comte7092 ◴[26 Sep 25 17:45 UTC] No.45389112[source]▶
Most buses are diesel, and are transitioning to either battery electric or hydrogen fuel cell. Almost no fleets in the US are running majority CNG.
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kjkjadksj ◴[27 Sep 25 06:29 UTC] No.45393599[source]▶
LA metro has 2200 CNG busses.
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1. comte7092 ◴[28 Sep 25 04:14 UTC] No.45401711[source]▶
>Almost no fleets in the US are running majority CNG.