[bastawhiz]

> the largest / longest range model

Nothing has suggested that they are.

You're also neglecting the eventuality where the moment a district needs more buses with a minimum range above some threshold, they need to sell some buses (probably at a significant loss) and buy more new buses. And those new buses need to be compatible with all of the existing systems.

You don't want a fleet of twenty vehicles that need eight different sets of parts. You want a fairly uniform fleet.

[limitedfrom]

I did not suggest that they have twenty vehicles either. I replied on a different post, but an average school bus route in the US is about 32 mi[0]. Zum buses are capable of 155 mi[1]. Given their "up to" language, I'd like to think that they actually offer smaller battery capacities as well, but especially for a non-rural district like Oakland[2], if one were to carry 155 mi range for a typically 32 mi or less route, it would be quite an overkill.

One can have a few 155 mi range vehicles for field trips, sports games, etc. but the majority of the fleet can be much smaller for every day uses.

[0] https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/60068.pdf [1] https://www.ridezum.com/blog/electric-school-buses-the-benef... [2] https://gopublicschoolsoakland.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/0...