Electric busses to join transportation fleet

The Roseville Joint district has decided to move to electric buses in the upcoming years. They have ordered eighteen new buses and are hoping for them to be here by this summer.

“We will receive grant funds from Carl Moyer, SECAT and the Clean Air Act, HVIP (Hybrid and Zero Emissions Vehicle Incentive Vouchers), Roseville City Electric and a private funding source totaling $6,646,000 for 18 Electric Buses. We currently have been awarded $200,000 in infrastructure funding so far. We anticipate additional funding through CalStart Energize as well as Roseville City Electric. I will continue to seek additional grant funding to supplement this project while we continue to transition towards a larger EV fleet,” Director of Transportation Julie Guererro said.

All of the electric buses will be fully equipped with all new electronics and will all be running on one hundred percent electricity. The current bus yard that the Roseville district uses is going under change and is having charging stations implemented.

Eleven of the eighteen new buses are medium sized wheelchair equipped buses. The other seven buses are full sized 78 passenger buses.

“Once the EV industry evolves and can support all our transportation needs, then we will continue to convert the other 1/2 of our school bus fleet to all electric.  The school bus industry and most school bus manufacturers have stopped producing the common diesel buses already.” Guerrero said.

The intention for the buses is to have them up and running by the summer in hopes to have them potentially in operation by this next coming school year. They should have everything on track by then as long as everything goes to plan and there are no setbacks with getting parts or any other technical problems.

Guerrero explains that the most important and time consuming part of the new buses and the preparation of it is having to train the new bus drivers. The drivers will have to learn a whole new bus compared to the diesel buses that have been in use for the past years.

The focus is to clean the air and protect the students that have to ride the bus. Most of the funding is coming from all clean air acts and pushing for a cleaner environment. These new buses will be pushing zero carbon emissions into the air once they are on the road.