California will welcome America’s first electric school bus

4 November 2013 -The all-electric school bus can save a school district about 60 litres of fuel a day, or around 11,000 USD a year. 

Named the SST-e, the bus was partly funded by the California Air Resources Board‘s air quality improvement programme for electric buses. It holds up to 32 children or 24 students and one wheelchair. When more buses are developed, they will be available to districts with four or five battery packs, providing 130-160 kilometres of travel, respectively.

The buses can be 50% charged in less than an hour and are equipped with telemetry systems, which produce real-time route data and preventive maintenance reports to fleet managers.

Trans Tech Bus and Motiv Power Systems debuted the bus at the recent 2013 National Association for Pupil Transportation (NAPT) Annual Summit in Grand Rapids, MI. The two companies collaborated on the bus for the Kings Canyon Unified School District in the San Joaquin Valley of California.

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