Blue Bird Corporation is supplying 13 electric school buses to the Bowling Green Independent School District (BGISD) in Kentucky. The school district serves about 4,400 students in eight schools. BGISD launched a pilot program to expand its school bus fleet with zero-emission vehicles to help advance student and community health.

Blue Bird will provide ten Vision and three All American electric school buses to BGISD. Vision Type C electric buses can carry 72 students for up to 120 miles on a single charge. All American Type D electric buses can transport up to 84 students for the same distance. Depending on the charging infrastructure, both model buses take between three and eight hours to recharge fully.

Blue Bird’s zero-emission vehicles will travel up to 75 miles on seven routes each school day, as they pick up and safely transport around 2,300 students to and from schools.

“Bowling Green Independent Schools could not be more excited about ushering in a new era of zero-emission student transportation by acquiring our first 13 state-of-the-art electric school buses,” said BGISD Superintendent Gary Fields. “We are looking forward to a successful pilot program and to building on our relationship with Blue Bird.”

Bowling Green Independent Schools received a $5,135,000 grant through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2022 Clean School Bus Rebate Program to purchase its Blue Bird electric school bus fleet. This program is part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) which provides a total of $5 billion over five years for clean school bus transportation nationwide. Last year, the EPA awarded nearly $1 billion in funding to school districts across all 50 U.S. states for more than 2,400 clean school buses. In 2023, the EPA plans to offer an additional $1 billion in funding for low- and zero-emission school buses, including $400 million in competitive grants.

“We are thrilled to help Bowling Green Independent Schools transition to electric buses and clean student transportation,” said Britton Smith, president of Blue Bird Corporation. “The school district is poised to benefit greatly from Blue Bird’s high performing, advanced electric vehicles. Our Vision and All American buses perform exceptionally well in all weather conditions – from extreme heat to freezing cold – due to the outstanding thermal management of the batteries. In addition, we anticipate that the school district will realize significant savings. Blue Bird customers have reported an average 14 cents per mile in energy costs for electric buses compared to up to 49 cents per mile in fuel costs for their diesel buses.”

Blue Bird has more than 1,000 electric-powered, zero-emission school buses in operation today. BGISD purchased its advanced electric vehicles through Blue Bird’s authorized school bus dealer Central States Bus Sales in Lexington, Ky.