BEVERLY, Mass. — It’s a gray November morning, and we’re on board a long, yellow school bus.
The bus bounces over this Boston suburb’s patched streets in a way that would be familiar to anyone who ever rode a bus to class. But the bus is quiet – and not just because there are no kids on board.
This school bus is electric.
Right now, only a tiny fraction of the roughly 480,000 school buses in America are battery-powered. Most still use gasoline or diesel engines, just as they have for decades. But thanks to fast-maturing electric-vehicle technology – and the new incentives available under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act – electric school buses are set to become much more common over the next decade.
“It’s like a big huge go-kart,” said the bus driver on that November day, who’s been driving school buses, mostly gas-powered, for over three decades. “When you accelerate, you move. When you stop accelerating, you stop. And you don’t hear any sound.”
“Driving a diesel bus is not like driving a go-kart,” she said.
Greener pastures
Environmental activists have been working for years to try to replace diesel and gasoline school buses with new electric models. Until recently, they faced some big challenges: Only a couple of companies made fully electric school buses, prices were very high, and the need for new “refueling” and maintenance infrastructure to replace tried-and-true diesel proved too daunting for many school officials.
That’s starting to change. Over the last couple of years, more companies — including long-established school-bus manufacturers — have begun making electric school buses, government subsidies have increased, and regulators and nonprofits have worked to educate school districts, utilities and the general public about the advantages.
But this isn’t like selling electric vehicles to drivers. School districts have to navigate a confusing array of subsidies and restrictions — and deal with the awkward fact that right now, a new EV bus costs a lot more than a traditional diesel-powered bus (in fact, three to four times as much).
It’s hard to make a battery-electric version of a long-haul truck, like EV startup Nikola is working on, as the batteries required to deliver the distance weigh a lot and take hours to recharge.
But the case for a school bus — which needs only limited range of mileage, and has plenty of idle time to recharge — is much simpler. And the advantages to the traditional buses are clear.
They’re much better, and their savings are much greater once you actually get them into the depot.
Sue Gander
Director at the World Resources Institute
Not only do electric school buses, or ESBs, help the environment — by not expelling diesel fumes or other emissions —they’re also better for the children they carry, particularly those suffering from chronic respiratory conditions such as asthma.
Like other electric vehicles, ESBs are also likely to have lower maintenance costs over time than their internal-combustion counterparts.
Plus, the buses’ large batteries can store and deliver energy to power buildings and other devices, whether temporarily in an emergency or as part of a larger renewable-energy strategy.
Driving up costs
All of those advantages come with a price tag, however.
ESBs are expensive: Battery-electric versions of small “Type A” school buses cost roughly $250,000, versus $50,000 to $65,000 for diesel; full-size “Type C” or “Type D” buses can range from $320,000 to $440,000 in electric form, versus about $100,000 for diesel.
“They’re much better, and their savings are much greater once you actually get them into the depot,” Sue Gander, a former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official, told CNBC in a recent interview. “But the upfront is such that, without [government] incentives, you can’t break even [in comparison to diesel buses].”
Gander leads the World Resources Institute’s Electric School Bus Initiative, a project funded in part by the Bezos Earth Fund established by Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos. The initiative works with school officials, utility companies and ESB manufacturers to try to accelerate the adoption of zero-emission school buses.
“We think for the next three or four years, as costs come down, as scale goes up, we’ll need to have those incentives in place to make the numbers work,” she said.
And like other electric vehicles, ESBs will require new infrastructure: At minimum, a school district or bus operator will need to install chargers and retrain their mechanics to service the new buses’ battery-electric drivetrains and control systems.
A Thomas Built electric school bus in Beverly, Massachusetts.
John Rosevear | CNBC
For small school districts, and those in low-income areas, the costs and challenges can be daunting.
Duncan McIntyre is trying to make it easy, or at least easier, for school districts to go electric. After years in the solar-energy business, he founded a company, Highland Fleets, that aims to make the switch to electric buses simple and affordable for school districts and local governments around the country.
“You’ve got more expensive equipment, but it operates much cheaper,” he said, noting that — as with other EVs — the costs of charging and maintaining an electric school bus are considerably lower than with gas or diesel buses.
The last piece, he says, “which everyone overlooks, is that those bus batteries can send power back to the grid to meet peak demand. And that’s an energy market’s opportunity to create additional revenue.”
Government incentives
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed late last year includes $5 billion in subsides for low- and zero-emission school buses over the next five years.
The EPA, charged with administering those subsidies, said in September about 2,000 U.S. school districts had already applied for the subsidies, with over 90% of those applications requesting electric buses. (The remainder were seeking subsidies for low-emissions buses powered by propane or compressed natural gas, the agency said.)
Not all of those applications, which combined amount to nearly $4 billion in subsidies, will be approved immediately. The EPA awarded about $1 billion in funds in October, giving priority to low-income, rural, and tribal communities. It expects to distribute another $1 billion in 2023.
California offers state-level subsidies, through its Air Resources Board, of up to $235,000 per bus, plus an additional $30,000 per bus for charging equipment. The agency set aside $122 million for the program this year.
Colorado has made available $65 million in funding for a similar program. And New York, Connecticut, Maryland and Maine all moved to set up similar programs this year, with New York the first to target a 100% electric school bus fleet by 2035.
The money is helpful, but Gander said school districts still need to think through all of the aspects of going electric.
“It’s really about supporting school districts, helping them understand where do electric buses fit into my fleet at the moment? And how do I plan for continuing to add them in to my fleet as I go along?” Gander said. “How do I develop the infrastructure? How do I access the funding and financing that’s out there? And how do I involve the community in this process?”
Jaguar is betting on expensive luxury EVs, like the controversial Type 00, as part of its comeback plans. The struggling British automaker sees an opportunity in the 140,000 euro ($160,000) to 300,000 euro ($350,000) price range.
Jaguar bets on $300,000 luxury EVs for survival
If you haven’t seen it yet, well, the Type 00 is unique, to put it nicely. Jaguar revealed the radical GT concept late last year, nearly breaking the internet.
Everyone from Tesla’s Elon Musk to Lucid Motors chimed in, poking fun at the design and Jaguar’s desperate search for a new image.
Although Jaguar’s design boss, Gerry McGovern, the man behind the Type 00’s controversial look, was fired earlier this month, that isn’t stopping the company from plowing ahead with plans to launch its first next-gen EV in 2026.
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Members of the media were invited to Jaguar’s UK headquarters earlier this month for a closer look at the flagship EV and a brief test run.
According to WIRED, which attended the event, the Type 00 “still looks odd,” but it packs some serious power. Unlike the two-door GT concept, the vehicle actually has four doors. Although the second set of doors is a slight improvement, the hood is still a bit too long.
Jaguar Type 00 first public debut in Paris (Source: Jaguar)
Jaguar’s managing director, Rawdon Glover, said the company has gone through about 150 prototypes, and that six months ago the hardware was updated.
The interior design wasn’t finalized with wires and bolted-on displays, but “it does have one of the nicest steering wheels I have seen in a long time,” WIRED said (at least it’s a start.).
Jaguar Type 00 first public debut in Paris (Source: Jaguar)
Like BMW and Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar stressed the importance of computing power. JLR’s vehicle engineering director, Matt Becker, said that, like BMW’s “Heart of Joy” ECU, Jaguar’s new tech cuts ECUs’ lag time to just 1 millisecond.
Thanks to the improved ECU and added software, the “car seems to keep accelerating with ease way beyond the 100-mph mark.”
Jaguar Type 00 luxury EV concept interior (Source: Jaguar)
Jaguar revealed the flagship EV will be equipped with a tri-motor setup, delivering over 1,000 hp. The setup will include two electric motors on the rear axle, plus one on the front.
Other specs, including charging speeds and official driving range, have yet to be revealed. However, Jaguar did say it’s aiming for around 400 miles (WLTP).
Glover made it clear that “Jaguar had to change” to ensure the brand’s survival. According to Jaguar’s boss, “there’s a space right at the top end of premium, but underneath the uber luxury of the Rolls Royce, the Lamborghinis, the Bentleys. There’s a big gap between 140,000 euros and 300,000 euros [$160,000 and $350,000].”
Jaguar has been successful in that segment before. Can it do it again as an all-electric brand? With other global OEMs, like Ford, water down EV plans, will Jaguar follow suit? “Anything’s possible,” Glover said, adding, “but it’s not in our plan.”
Jaguar’s electric four-door GT is expected to launch in the first half of 2026. It will be followed by at least two more luxury EVs, which are expected to be a sedan and an SUV.
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A California judge ruled late Tuesday afternoon that Tesla engaged in “deceptive marketing” in reference to its Full Self-Driving system, and that Tesla’s license to sell and produce cars in the state should be revoked for 30 days.
However, the California DMV has said it will give Tesla 60 days to comply and fix its marketing before going through with the suspension.
The ruling is big news in a case that has been ongoing for years now.
Tesla has been selling level 2 driver assist software since 2016 which it calls “Full Self-Driving” (FSD), despite that this software did not (and still does not) make its cars capable of driving themselves.
Tesla also provides software under the name “Autopilot,” another term that evokes some level of autonomy, though perhaps not as explicitly as the aforementioned FSD. Tesla long held the position that this word is meant to evoke airplane-like systems that still require a pilot, but can just do most of the work for them.
So eventually, in 2021, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) officially started an investigation into Tesla’s marketing claims, to determine whether the company had lied to consumers.
During this time, the California legislature got involved as well, passing a law that specifically banned automakers from deceiving consumers into thinking vehicles have more autonomous capabilities than they do.
Well, after all these investigations and waiting, we finally have an an answer, and the judge’s ruling makes it quite clear: Tesla lied to consumers about its autonomous capabilities.
California court rules Tesla lied about autonomy
The court looked at Tesla’s marketing claims and also at surveys of people exposed to those claims and their opinion of whether a Tesla would be able to drive itself, given the marketing messages put out by the company.
It found problems both with the word Autopilot and the phrase Full Self-Driving.
The word “Autopilot” was not found to be “unambiguously false,” but the court said that its use “follows a long but unlawful tradition of ‘intentionally (using) ambiguity to mislead consumers while maintaining some level of deniability about the intended meaning.’” The court found that a reasonable person could believe that a car on Autopilot doesn’t require their constant undivided attention, which is incorrect as the driver is still fully responsible for the vehicle.
On “Full Self-Driving,” the court was even more harsh. It found that this feature name is “actually, unambiguously false and counterfactual” (comically, Tesla tried to argue here that “no reasonable person” could believe that Full Self-Driving actually means Full Self-Driving).
The court noted other language used by Tesla, including marketing copy that said “the system is designed to be able to conduct short and long distance trips with no action required by the person in the driver’s seat,” and suggested that “legal reasons” are the only things holding Tesla back from full autonomy. Tesla tried to say that this was a statement of future intent, but the court found that its use of the present tense shows otherwise.
Tesla has repeatedly changed its wording around FSD, first calling it Full Self-Driving Capability, then changing that to Full Self-Driving (Supervised) to emphasize the need for a driver to supervise the vehicle. The court noted these changes, and then said it would not be a burden to force Tesla to change its marketing further to clarify that its cars do not drive themselves.
The DMV could now shut Tesla down for 30 days if it does not comply
Which leads us to the proposed legal remedy: the court said that the DMV could suspend or revoke Tesla’s licenses for 30 days, stopping its ability to sell or build cars in the state.
Tesla’s first factory is in Fremont, California, where it still builds around half a million vehicles a year and employs some ~20,000 employees. Tesla says this remedy would be “draconian,” but the court said that without this option, there’s no reason to believe Tesla would stop its misrepresentations to the public.
The court also examined the possibility of financial restitution, but deemed that inappropriate. Since the case did not establish any quantifiable financial harm done by Tesla’s misrepresentation and noted the impracticality of accounting for that harm.
This ruling does not yet mean that Tesla can’t sell cars in California, which is its largest market in the US by far. The court noted that the DMV has the option of suspension or revocation, which the DMV can do at its discretion. And the DMV has said that it will allow Tesla 60 days to comply with the order before it takes action, and that it would focus on Tesla’s dealer license rather than its manufacturing license.
This would mean, specifically, that Tesla not refer to a level 2 driving system as “Autopilot” or using language that suggests these vehicles are autonomous. It will have to change its marketing materials and stop making public statements misleading the public about its autonomous capabilities.
Tesla said after the ruling that “sales in California will continue uninterrupted.” But we’ll see what happens in 60 days, and what sort of changes Tesla does or does not make to its deceptive marketing.
Tuesday’s ruling is just one of many legal cases against Tesla right now, specifically having to do with FSD. One relevant case is a class action lawsuit in California claiming Tesla misled customers about its cars self-driving capabilities. This ruling could provide fuel for that lawsuit, given a California judge has already gone on the record with an official determination that Tesla misled the public about FSD.
Electrek’s Take
Well, this ruling has been a long time coming, but it’s good that it has finally come.
Most significantly, there are around 4 million cars on the road that do not have the hardware Tesla said they have.
And these misstatements continue through today, with Tesla constantly hyping up its “Robotaxi” program, despite that those cars are only capable of level 2 driver-assistance. It even says that robotaxis are operating in California, when by any definition, they are not.
While courts have held Tesla to account a few times with small claims actions in the UK and the US, this is the first big, sweeping decision that could require the company to change its ways.
That said, government has gagged Tesla CEO Elon Musk before, to little effect. After the SEC found that he lied to investors in a tweet, it said that all his public statements must be pre-screened if they’re relevant to Tesla’s stock price.
That didn’t seem to change his behavior much, though. So given that history, he may continue with the same misleading public statements about FSD.
Which leaves it up to the California DMV: will it follow through and do something if the lies continue? Or will Tesla change its ways and start being more realistic about its cars’ capabilities? Either way, we’ll find out within 60 days.
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Waymo is reportedly looking to raise a massive new round of funding that would value the autonomous driving company at over $100 billion as it accelerates its expansion.
Since Alphabet spun out its self-driving car project into Waymo back in 2016, the company has been seen as the leader in the space, at least when it comes to deploying actual driverless vehicles on public roads without anyone in the driver’s seat.
While Tesla has been promising “Full Self-Driving” for years with a camera-only approach on consumer vehicles, Waymo has taken the more expensive, sensor-heavy robotaxi route.
It has been a capital-intensive journey, but it seems to be paying off in terms of deployment, as it now completes hundreds of thousands of paid autonomous rides per week in half a dozen US cities.
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Now, a new report from Bloomberg states that Waymo is looking to raise more than $15 billion in a new funding round.
According to the report, the round is expected to value Waymo at nearly $100 billion:
“Waymo, Alphabet Inc.’s autonomous driving unit, is in discussions to raise more than $15 billion at a valuation near $100 billion, in a financing round led by its parent company. The maker of robotaxis has discussed raising billions in equity from external backers as well as Alphabet, said the people.”
This would be a massive jump in valuation for the company. For context, Waymo raised $5.6 billion just a year ago in October 2024 at a valuation of around $45 billion.
If this new round goes through, it would more than double the company’s valuation in less than a year.
The funding push comes as Waymo aggressively expands its service. The company recently announced that it has completed over 14 million rider-only trips in 2025 alone. It is currently operating fully driverless commercial services in several major markets, including San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Austin, with plans to expand to cities like Miami and potentially international markets like London and Tokyo by 2026.
Waymo’s fleet currently consists of about 2,500 vehicles, primarily the Jaguar I-PACE, though it is transitioning to a custom-built robotaxi vehicle from Zeekr in the near future.
Electrek’s Take
Waymo can do a lot with $15 billion. It could 40x its fleet with 100,000 vehicles and still have a few billion left for operations.
For a long time, the narrative was that Waymo’s approach, HD maps, LiDAR, expensive sensors, and remote monitoring, was too expensive to scale compared to Tesla’s vision-only global fleet approach.
And while that might still be true in the long run if Tesla solves FSD, which is a big if, the reality on the ground today is that Waymo is the one offering rides with nobody in the front seat.
With 100,000 autonomous vehicles, it could capture 10% of the US ride-hailing market and likely become financially self-sustainable.
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