[ralph84]

School buses seem like possibly the only real use case here, since they have a very seasonal usage pattern. For other commercial vehicles, the operators buy them to operate, not sit around and power the grid. When are they envisioned to be powering the grid?

[nemomarx]

Municipal buses are parked in depots overnight, right? That would kind of make sense - they already have to own the land for that, the vehicles already have to stay there in specific conditions, etc.

[ralph84]

When are they supposed to charge if they're operating during the day and powering the grid at night?

[elihu]

I don't think that makes sense given that you'd probably want a full battery in the morning to start your day, and night-time is when you'd want to draw from the battery (assuming solar becomes a much bigger component of grid power).

It's possible I suppose that cities and school districts could have busses that have more capacity than they strictly need, and so it makes sense to use any surplus capacity for grid storage (while maintaining a reasonable margin in case a bus has to make an unexpected trip because some other bus had a flat tire or something).

[mmaurizi]

Not just seasonal, the school busses are also not in use during the day while school is in session, which is unusual for mass transit busses.

[com2kid]

Most buses do at least 4 trips a day, elementary then a middle or high school route in the morning, then repeat that in the afternoon.

There are only idle for 2 or 3 hours during the day.

(Field trips can add another usage in the middle of the day as well)