After ballot propositions calling for electric buses passed, the Croton School in New York placed a banner on its entry gate at the bus depot that says, “We’re Charging Toward Our Future.”
and tax levies, it calculates the cost per household of the investments. “If you drive 12,000 instead of 10,000 miles a year,
it makes the return on investment quicker,” said Visweswariah, whose day job is that of president and CEO of software firm Utopus Insights that he also found- ed. “If you keep the bus longer, if you drive more miles, the benefits will just get greater and greater.” The spreadsheet also shows the carbon emissions
saved by switching from fossil fuels to electric, using ZIP Code-level data to estimate the carbon emissions pro- duced by electricity in each area, depending on the mix of power generation. “This is a beautiful thing to show a school
board,” Visweswariah observed. “The cost is almost equal, the carbon is so much lower, and let’s talk about the health of your kids. This costs you nothing over a 12-year
period, why wouldn’t you approve this?” In many municipalities across Croton, residents
approve school bus purchases through ballot referenda. Croton100, the group Mothers Out Front, and others launched a lively campaign to educate Croton residents about electric buses, and ultimately in May three ballot referenda overwhelmingly succeeded in calling for the purchase of a 66-person electric bus and two electric 35-person, mini-buses, contingent on subsidies being secured. (A referendum to authorize two diesel bus pur- chases also passed, but by a much narrower margin.) The interactive spreadsheet helped win support for the
referenda. It showed that a 35-person, 100-mile-range electric bus would have a $106,000 cost of ownership over 12 years, compared to $151,000 for a gasoline bus. The price of the gas bus was estimated at $70,000 com- pared to $200,000 for electric. The total ownership cost
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