Newbie needs a bus! Please Help!

[Bon Voyage]

You could do a cheap conversion if you’re resourceful within budget and you take your time to source anything you buy, maybe a lot of used materials and no roof raise. With the electric conversion you’d probably have to at least double the budget, I think a new battery for a Toyota Prius is about $5000 and that’s just a small car. I wonder what the electric motor to power a bus would cost...

My 40 ft bus with roof raise initial budget was $15,000 (I just picked a number). Bus was $3500 but ended up having to get another $4000 or so in repairs. All in now I’m close to $30,000 now but I don’t want to add all my receipts to find out for sure. It’s about 70% complete.

Would be really cool if you can do it. You’ll also need a bus with a place to hold the batteries. Hopefully you can find a way to do it all.

[JustKip]

I came right out of the chute saying this wouldn't be feasible on the stated budget, and I can give a little more info as to why not. It's been quite a few years since I looked into the cost of electric car batteries, so I had a fresh look.
A 24 kilowatt hour battery for a Nissan Leaf is $5500, and it's a small car with a limited range. The battery pack for the Chevy Volt, with its 238 mile range, costs over $15k, and you'd need at least 4 of them.

Batteries should fit under the floor, the whole floor, and that eliminates space for holding tanks.

https://www.greencarreports.com/news...ic-car-battery.

That's over $60k in batteries alone, for a set of batteries that have a shelf-life. It's not like you'll be able to story mega-power to run a tiny house for decades. It's about $6000 to $7500 a year for 8 to 10 years, whether you use it or not.
You won't be able to fit enough solar on top of a bus to charge the batteries in a single day, or even 2 days, and that's several thousands more. There ARE commercially available electric buses, and they typically have their own charging station for each one.

[KatTravels]

Thanks Maddmaxx! It's really nice to get a little hope!! I'm not sure if it will be possible, but that's why my nephew and brother are converting a car first to see how much it's actually going to take...money and time wise. My nephew is already saving up (as am I). We know this is going to be an adventure, whether we end up converting it to electric or not. It's all about the journey! We have 3 years to make this happen, so we have the time to find the materials we'll need at a discount and to make what we can't afford to buy. I'm sorry Shawna, but we are very excited to do this from the ground up, so we aren't interested in your bus. Best of luck!