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    Blue Bird Receives Order for 180 Electric School Buses from Los Angeles Unified School District

    Jan. 18, 2024
    This order represents the single largest order of electric school buses from a school district in the company’s history
    Blue Bird Corporation
    65a926a973a26a001ea9b384 Blue Bird Corporation

    Blue Bird Corporation has received an order from the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) for 180 electric, zero-emission school buses. This order represents the single largest order of electric school buses from a school district in the company’s history and will help the school district transition the first of several depots to 100% electric student transportation.

    Currently, LAUSD operates 26 Blue Bird electric school buses in its fleet, and this order will deliver 30 Vision and 150 All-American electric buses. The school district anticipates delivery of the first buses in October 2024 and for the order to be fulfilled in early 2025.

    “Los Angeles Unified is excited to move toward the electrification of our Sun Valley Bus Yard school buses,” said LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. “We must fully commit ourselves to creating a model of sustainability that benefits our students, our school communities, and generations to come.”

    Both the Vision and All-American models have a range of up to 130 miles on a single charge, and, based on LAUSD’s future charging infrastructure, the buses will take between 3 and 8 hours to achieve a full charge.

    The Blue Bird electric buses also come standard with vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capabilities. This bi-directional charging technology will allow LAUSD to sell excess energy stored in school bus batteries back to the electric power companies for profit.

    Additionally, the V2G program will help balance demand on the grid and improve grid resiliency.

    “We are thrilled to provide safe, reliable, and – above all – clean student transportation to the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the nation,” said Phil Horlock, CEO of Blue Bird. “Demand for low- and zero-emission school buses remains strong across the United States, [and] Blue Bird will continue to meet and exceed our customer expectations.”

    About the Author

    EnergyTech Staff

    Rod Walton is senior editor for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 14 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.

    Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    He can be reached at [email protected]. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids.

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.