Considering the frequent cold waves (to -34C since early November) the area is having this winter, the initial results are excellent and better than expected.

This may indeed be a real winner and a good 3 years ahead of equivalent Volvo Canada units.

AVT (Grouped Bus purchasing for 10 cities) will need between 200 and 400 electric city e-buses a year for the next 10 years or so to phase out existing diesel units.

All those e-buses will operate with clean Hydro/Wind energy.

@peskanov:
Horribly inefficient!
You jest.

This carries 31 passengers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_electric_bus

It does that using 1.5kwh/km at its worst with full air conditioning running, or 2.42kwh/mile

That comes to 78Wh/mile per passenger!

So it is around as efficient as a Leaf with 4 people in.

Oops!
I lost the decimal place!
The diesel bus is uses around 3.3kwh/mile, of course, so the electric bus is around 1.5 times as efficient.

The area has huge low cost clean Hydro/Wind e-energy surpluses till 2027 and much more can be installed on an as required basis.

Charging 4000+ large city e-buses overnight, when e-energy demand is down by up to 66% will not be a burden for the grid but a welcomed load leveling exercise.

The same could be said about the future 3+ million electrified vehicles in the area.

To update my own post, BYD had stated that testing confirmed the safety of the buses.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20131213005908/en/LA-Area-Transit-Officials-Tout-Electric-Bus-Company#.UuScUPuwoad

Davemart,
you made the calculations and got even even a worse result than me!
Comparing it to a diesel is a bit disingenuous, we all now ICEs are not effcicient. But most electricity come from coal and gas plants, and these not much more efficicient than a decent diesel bus (>30% eff.).
EVs can do better, and nearly all of them DO better. A city bus moves under 70 km/h most of the time, I see no reason for using a terribly inefficient automatic transmission optimized for maximum speed in an slow heavy duty vehicle. Also, the speed range is narrow, a simple gearbox will do. And it does not need to be manual, it can be a piloted one.
About big batteries: imho, when designing an EV money is better spent in lighter chassis/body materials instead of bigger batteries. Batteries age fast, body and chassis not (and are easier to recycle). And you get the benefit of less energy needed for operation.

It could be that the 4 MPH versus 40 MPH efficiency includes lots of stops at 4 MPH. If you have to accelerate a large bus with lots of people many times, it takes lots of energy.

If you look at the efficiency curves for motors, they are efficient while running, but while producing large torque from stand still they take a LOT of power and are no where as efficient.

There should be plenty of controller/motor heat to keep a well insulated bus interior warm in stop and go conditions. They can use a heat pump on the controller to keep it cool and provide almost instant heat for the bus interior.

It is not battery heat, you are heating the batteries in winter to get more range. It is heat from the controllers and motors and that can be quantified.

That is it, cost drives the decision, not what is "best". The thermal insulation would also be sound insulation. It would be nice to have buses that are quiet inside.

Well this bus has a bit under 4 times the battery capacity of a Model S but I'm sure it weighs more than 4 times the amount and isn't nearly as aerodynamic. I doubt a model S could do 250km in the type of stop and go driving that a bus has to do. I built and drive my own electric vehicle (a converted Japanese mini truck) and those consumption figures seem completely reasonable for a vehicle of that size. I can easily see 250wh/km in aggressive stop and go driving. Regenerative braking helps but you only recover a small portion of the energy you used to accelerate in real life and that's all a bus does all day long.

Now the heater, say they're using 80% of their 324kwh pack, 259kwh, over 8 hours that's an average draw of 32.4kw from the battery. If their motor and controller are 90% efficient then you have 3240w of waste heat available continuously over that time period. Even if you could effectively capture 80% of that (likely impossible unless you insulated the motor so it didn't radiate that heat to atmosphere under the bus) that's only ~2600W of heat. I have a 1600w heater in a very small insulated cab and it's not even close to being enough when it's -20 C outside and I tend to keep the doors closed when I'm stopped. The 31 people will put out more than 2600 watts and that's not enough to keep the bus warm otherwise a heater wouldn't be needed at all. The 2600w might keep the front window clear. With something that has that many windows and that much surface area with a continuous windchill from moving through the air you need a lot of heat to keep it comfortable inside when it's -20 C or colder. The diesel heater will burn much cleaner than the diesel engine due to more complete combustion.

I'm impressed, I think it's great progress and in Quebec where 96% of the electricity is hydro this is a huge reduction in GHGs and other emissions compared to a diesel bus. Not to mention vastly reduced noise, vibration and maintenance.