Moving the School Bus to an EV Market

If there’s one highly recognizable vehicle in the American landscape it’s the big yellow school bus, but now it’s getting much quieter.

It almost seems strange to see a bus that isn’t painted in the yellow color that we know and understand. While these vehicles are driven by professionals that we trust to get our kids to school every day, they are some of the most harmful vehicles to our environment.

Blue Bird is Making the Change to EV

Blue Bird is slowly moving away from the massive diesel engines that have been used in every school bus for many years to build electric models. In fact, this company will deliver its 300thelectric school bus very soon. Blue Bird has already supplied a California district with 100 electric busses earlier in 2020. More of these electric models are on the way to other areas around the country.

Excellence in the Electric School Bus

The Blue Bird School Bus features a 160-kWh battery pack which is good for 100 to 120-miles of driving on a full charge. These buses feature better power and acceleration than the existing diesel models and require much less maintenance to get the job done. These busses feature CCS1 connectors to allow for AC and DC fast-charging using stations that are provided by Blue Bird.

Three Versions for School Districts

Blue Bird offers three different models of the EV school bus. The Micro Bird Gt electric has room for 30 passengers and a 100-mile range, the All America RE Electric can seat 84 passengers and drive for up to 120 miles on a single charge, and the Vision Electric has room for 77 passengers and also can drive up to 120 miles before it needs to be recharged. This gives school districts the choices they need to replace their current busses.

Regulations May Make EV Busses a Requirement

The movement away from diesel models to electric has been slow, but mostly because it’s extremely expensive to replace a school bus fleet. There may be future regulations put in place that could require all school busses to have an EV powertrain with a goal date of making this change. Another way to go about it would be to require all current busses to be replaced with EV models when the busses being used now are retired.

The School Bus is thePerfect EV

Could EV driving be expected in other areas of commercial driving? Right now, probably not. School busses are uniquely and perfectly situated to handle the drive needed and charging times because they spend many hours in the fleet garage and only serve a limited geographic area. Moving EV technology to large trucks could be extremely difficult.

As we look for various ways to smartly employ EV driving, local transportation seems to make the most sense. The Blue Bird EV School Bus program could become a widespread success and a great way for school systems to replace busses that are being retired with models that will cost less to keep on the road.