Where I live in the US my kids still take “cheese buses” to school that haven’t changed a bit. They’re diesel and you can hear them blocks away. When they pull up with their air brakes going off and their diesel shifting to idle it sounds like one of those spice miner things from Dune going to work.

If they ever go electric I’m not sure how we’ll know it’s time to take the kids out. Won’t be able to hear them coming.

You'll see the bus on your phone / home hub. Like ridezoom company does, you see whenever your kid checked in/out of the bus, and the bus itself on a map.

My school district has some that are electric and they are quite noisy also. sounds like gear noise mainly, so they must have a reduction gear or some sort of transmission. They also still have air brakes so you hear the compressor and the PSSSSHT of air when they stop.

> If they ever go electric I’m not sure how we’ll know it’s time to take the kids out. Won’t be able to hear them coming.

I'm sure they'll just have an app.

There's a similar danger with very quiet and/or electric cars where people near the school barely hear them coming and need more attention to keep themselves safe. Avoiding an older gas or diesel car is practically automatic as you can hear their speed, acceleration and location comparatively far away. I think EV manufacturers have added some sort of noise to low speed driving, but I haven't heard anything beyond one being right behind me

They’ll simply use ice-cream van style chimes :)