Greenpower Receives Orders for 35 Mega Beasts in California

GreenPower Motor Company announced orders for 35 Type D all-electric, purpose-built school buses for the California market. (Earlier post.) GreenPower received the orders from its exclusive California dealer Model 1 (formerly Creative Bus Sales) for 25 of the newly introduced Mega BEAST school buses for the Montebello School District and 10 BEAST school buses for the Garden Grove school district.

Funding for the all-electric, zero-emission school buses comes from both the California HVIP program and the EPA Clean School Bus Program.

In the past month, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation requiring all new school buses in California be electric by 2035. With that action, California joined Connecticut, Maine, Maryland and New York in mandating the switch to all-electric, zero-emission school buses in fleets over the next four to 17 years. The new law makes California the leader in state funding for the transition to all-electric school buses with the switch projected to cost roughly $5 billion.

At the end of September the California HVIP program extended the date for submissions for the public school bus set-aside funding of $370,000 for a Type D BEAST school bus without a wheelchair lift and $395,000 with a wheelchair lift, and $285,000 for a Type A Nano BEAST without a wheelchair lift and $310,000 for a Type A Nano BEAST Access with a wheelchair lift.

GreenPower’s BEAST is a 40-foot Type D all-electric, purpose-built, zero-emission school bus that can seat up to 90 passengers with standard features that include air ride suspension, ABS disk brakes and largest pass-through storage available. Featuring a modern monocoque chassis, the BEAST is the safest, most durable and reliable all-electric school bus available today. Its seamlessly integrated aluminum body and chassis design forms a composite structure.

The Mega BEAST, introduced on 31 October, delivers a class-leading range of up to 300 miles on a single charge via a 387 kWh battery pack. It provides for the longest range and has the biggest battery pack in the school bus market. The Mega BEAST is designed to provide the answer for longer range routes and other desired uses by a school district.

 

The extended range created by the larger battery pack is a solution for many rural school districts with longer routes, school districts with less chance for mid-day opportunity charging, school districts that face extreme weather conditions and schools that also use the all-electric bus for extra-curricular activities. The larger battery of the Mega BEAST also has the ability to provide for a more healthy and stable electric grid and community stability in areas where it is deployed and V2G is used.