What a tragedy

[Twigg]

I get it.

I get the EPA desire to clean up the atmosphere, but I really can not agree that this is the best way to do it.

I'm about as big a liberal as you will ever meet, but this is wrong on so many levels.

At least half of the pollution a vehicle will ever emit happens during manufacture and disposal, and the "greenest" vehicle we have are those that stay on the road the longest, especially if that prevents the sale of yet another new vehicle.

Look what they did to 16 buses in Arizona:

Public Surplus: School Bus

I guess if you have been here a long time you have seen this before, but it almost made me cry.

If this is in the wrong section, maybe a mod could move it.

:: sigh ::

[Rusty]

That's what we call "California Creep". They all sold their houses in Cali four ungodly sums and moved over/up a State and a re crapping-up those areas with their stupidity.

Why would manufacturers want buses that last for 25 years on the roads, makes it tough to sell the new crap-DuraMax.

If you really want to get pissed-off about waste and stupidity, check-out the US Military's policies.

/rant

[Mark_In_MA]

It is pretty stupid in a sense (especially for us, when we're looking for decent used buses fairly cheap), but the numbers don't lie.

A new bus runs around $80,000 (and up...I think $100,000 is a fair estimate.)

It makes little difference if they sell the old one for $1,000 as scrap, or $3,000 to some dealer (or one of us) as long as the grant for a new, cleaner bus is more then the difference (and I'd guess it's more then the difference.) Most of these are EPA grants where the old bus has to be taken off the road to be eligible for the grant.

200,000 miles at 7mpg will burn 28,571 gallons of diesel per bus. (The fuel cost alone is $75,000.)

Heres 25,000 gallons of fuel.


Thats a lot. When it comes to a fleet of buses, that starts to multiply fast.

For a skoolie it doesn't matter, since it will never see that much mileage, but for a fleet of 20-50 buses, its a bit different.

[ACamper]

I wonder how many vehicle manufacturers helped fund these EPA laws into existence to take "old" vehicles off the road.

Contrasting story
Many old school buses get bought by people from Central America taken down there and turned into public transportation and usually get run for a few more decades.

The public transportation were I live in Denver is absurd.. All new buses most are 90% empty all day - all week. The "company" RTD is funded by tax money and never has turned a profit always in the red and needing more so they can raise prices and run empty buses that cost more then driving.

Meanwhile in Central America tens of thousands of US discarded school buses run full all day all week, affordable(cheaper then driving a car) and turn a profit.

- Follow the money. US vehicle manufactures with connections to the lobby.

[brokedown]

The auto manufacturers clearly have an interest in bringing forth more and stricter regulation. Anything they can do to make it harder for a new competitor to enter the field is just peachy. More regulations = more employees = higher prices for customers = more dollars on the same % margins.

That doesn't hurt them, but it does hurt he next Hyundai or Kia that tries to enter the market.