Iconic yellow school bus maker is poised to go electric

Blue Bird, an automotive company renowned for manufacturing the iconic yellow school buses in the United States since 1927, is embarking on an expansion of its electric vehicle production. To facilitate this venture, the company has inaugurated a state-of-the-art electric vehicle assembly centre spanning 12,000 square metres at its Georgia plant.

The objective of Blue Bird is to manufacture 5,000 electric school buses annually, specifically the Vision 77-passenger and All American 84-passenger electric school buses. These buses will be equipped with batteries capable of covering a distance of 190 kilometres on a single charge, which typically takes three to eight hours.

Phil Horlock, the CEO of Blue Bird Corporation, expressed optimism regarding the company’s electric school bus initiative, anticipating thousands of orders worth around $1 billion over a span of five years. Furthermore, Blue Bird foresees an increase in demand for electric school buses driven by infrastructure incentives.