Electric school buses are a breath of fresh air for children | Nearly $1B in federal funding could help clean up the unequal health impacts of diesel pollution.::Nearly $1B in federal funding will help decarbonize transportation and clean up some of the unequal health impacts of diesel pollution
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/60068.pdf
“Similarly to route duration, doubling the route distance to reflect daily operating distances, it is found that on average school buses travel 73.46 miles, with a 99.7% cutoff on driving distance of 154.46 miles.”
Keep in mind, that’s double distance to cover both before and after school; they have a pause in the middle of the day to charge up again. There are battery buses on the market right now that do 155 miles, which is double even the longest routes. It also takes about an order of magnitude more power to run a motor for an EV than it does to run the heaters. If you get stuck in the snow in an EV at 50% charge, you can likely make it there through the night with the heater running.
The cold is a complete non-issue for this use case.