It's a plug-in hybrid – and it's a school bus

Other efforts to clean up school buses have emerged over the years. Some districts still employ a handful of all-electric or compressed natural-gas buses. Maintenance costs were high for CNG, and range of driving was a problem for electric, analysts say.

Fuel prices and concerns about global warming could increase receptivity to plug-in hybrids. But all agree the cost needs to come way down first.

"There's definitely a lot of interest," says Ryan Gray, senior editor at School Transportation News, a trade publication based in Los Angeles. "Fuel savings holds a lot of weight for people."

Each of the first 19 buses costs over $200,000 – more than double the cost of a regular model. At that price, they won't pay for themselves over their lives, even with superior fuel savings. It's a chicken-and-egg problem because until about 1,000 buses roll off assembly lines, the cost of production will keep prices high.

Even after manufacturing efficiencies and competition bring the price down, plug-in hybrid school buses may still cost $40,000 more than a regular bus. But at that point, they will pay for themselves in just a few years with lower maintenance and fuel costs, analysts say.

Ordinary yellow "type C" school buses get about 6 to 8 miles to the gallon. But the new plug-in hybrid models, rated at more than 12 m.p.g., could cut fuel consumption about in half in many districts. That could mean a big fuel savings for tight budgets.

If the nation could double its fleet miles, school savings could be significant. About 475,000 buses transport 25 million kids each day. Traveling more than 4 billion miles a year, those buses burn about 550 million gallons of fuel annually, Mr. Gray says.

"If we could cut our fuel use in half, boy, we've done something good," says Mr. Schroyer of the Florida Department of Education. "It's that much less pollution, that much less cost."

Electricity isn't free, of course – and using it pollutes, especially in regions where coal-fired power plants predominate. Still, the price and emissions per mile powered by electricity are much less when compared with those of diesel fuel.

"It's definitely worth it to try this," says Ben Matthews, director of school support for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, which is buying two buses. "What we're buying is a prototype of the school bus of the future."

For Pritchard, the crusade isn't over. He's used up a small grant as seed money to help fund buses now being delivered. Now he's wishing the federal government would toss a few of its millions spent on energy research into deployment of plug-in buses.

"It's still very difficult to get people to fund this effort and buy into the idea," he says. "But in the long run, it's going to work."

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