Today, we know how LADWP commercial time-of-use[1] is windowed while fossil fuels remain the dominant energy source, but I have yet to encounter an argument supporting a thesis that these windows will immutably hold (or shift favorably) in the near future, let alone throughout the expected lifecycle of these buses; mean reversion is far more likely, rendering an "off peak hours" operations efficiency strategy moot.
As a selling point to the public, the article claims the investment will:
> ...save the district $2 million on bus maintenance and fuel costs annually.
I'd be interested in sanity checking which sphincter and under what assumptions they pulled that number out of. The going concern in my mind is this +10% CAGR trend in the average cost of electricity for the locality as evident in BLS data previously cited. If that trend continues unchecked, electricity is projected to cost +33% more in 2026 relative to today when the fleet of buses reach full operational capability, and over 3x more by 2035 when the state is postured to be at 100% new ZEV sales.
To be sure, I'm not trying to assert that this isn't a net positive for the district...just level setting the narrative that a decision being sold to the public as an investment which yields net lifecycle savings is looking much more like an outright expense increase to be carried by taxpayers with notional 2nd-order effects conveniently dismissed.
[1] https://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/faces/ladwp/commercial/c-custome...