Blue Bird delivers 2000th electric school bus

Blue Bird Corporation said it has delivered its 2,000th electric, zero-emission school bus. Nevada’s Clark County School District (CCSD), the fifth largest school district in the U.S., received the bus as part of its transition clean student transportation.

Blue Bird said its All American electric school bus offers the company’s new, extended range battery. Depending on the charging infrastructure, the bus takes between three and eight hours to recharge fully. It can carry 84 students.

Photo: Business Wire

Blue Bird’s zero-emission school buses are powered by the electric PowerDrive 7000 system from Accelera by Cummins.

“Electric school buses mean cleaner air to breathe for students, drivers and the community at large,” said Britton Smith, president at Blue Bird Corporation. “Local, state and federal funding for clean school buses remains at an historic high.”

CCSD received a $9.875 million grant through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean School Bus Program to purchase electric school buses, Blue Bird said, including this latest bus. The funding is part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), which provides a total of $5 billion over five years for clean school bus transportation nationwide.

CCSD maintains a bus fleet of more than 1,900 vehicles, transporting over 123,000 students each school day on more than 1,400 bus routes.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently selected Blue Bird to receive an $80 million grant to convert a former manufacturing site for diesel-powered motorhomes in Fort Valley, Ga., into an approximately 600,000-sq.-ft. electric vehicle manufacturing facility.

Blue Bird electric school buses serve school districts across 41 U.S. states and 4 Canadian provinces, the company said. They have already covered over five million miles. Blue Bird added that by replacing 2,000 diesel-powered school buses, carbon emissions by more than 21,000 metric tons annually.

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