GreenPower Motor Company Inc., a manufacturer of all-electric medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, including school buses, plans to deliver 88 Type D BEAST and Type A Nano BEAST buses to school districts in West Virginia in GreenPower’s fiscal year 2025 which began April 1, 2024.
“GreenPower is currently manufacturing all-electric, purpose-built school buses purchased by the state of West Virginia in its South Charleston plant,” said Fraser Atkinson, CEO of GreenPower. “Following behind that production are the school buses awarded to seven school districts in West Virginia under Round 2 of the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program.” School buses for other eastern markets like New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and western markets like Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada and Oregon are in the fiscal 2025 production schedule as well.
In January 2024, the EPA announced an $18,565,000 grant awarded to GreenPower of WV for the deployment of GreenPower’s school buses in seven West Virginia counties. The grant includes funding for the charging infrastructure to ensure a proper charging strategy for the deployment. “These seven counties were leaders in the #YesWV GreenPower All-Electric School Bus Pilot Project conducted during the 2022-23 school year. The pilot showed that, in fact, these buses worked well in the conditions and terrain of the Mountain State,” said Mark Nestlen, GreenPower’s vice president of business development and strategy. “The EPA funding for both the school buses and the charging infrastructure will ensure a safe and healthy ride for the students.”
Atkinson noted that once delivery is complete, nearly 100 GreenPower all-electric school buses will be in operation in West Virginia. “With the next tranche of deliveries, West Virginia will be a leading state in all-electric school bus deployment on a per capita basis,” he said.
The announcement of the planned deliveries comes on the heels of a record number of school bus deliveries during GreenPower’s just-ended 2024 fiscal year. “GreenPower’s 2024 fiscal year was transformational for our school bus team with deliveries growing significantly due to ever expanding incentives and mandates from local, state and federal government entities,” Atkinson said.
During fiscal year 2024, GreenPower delivered 29 Type D BEAST and 12 Type A Nano BEAST school buses across the country, for a total of 41 deliveries, an increase of 356% from the previous fiscal year. “Our production facilities in South Charleston, West Virginia and Porterville, California are all expected to be operating at high capacity with a target of reaching 50 to 60 purpose-built school buses per quarter by the end of the fiscal year 2025,” Atkinson added.
GreenPower President Brendan Riley said that the commercial division also reached significant delivery levels in fiscal 2024. EV Star deliveries to customers other than Workhorse increased by 9% during the fiscal year with a total of 179 EV Star products being deployed during the fiscal year. And during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, Workhorse resumed delivery of EV Star Cab & Chassis under the delivery contract entered into in March 2022.
“We expect that the commercial unit at GreenPower will supplement the income derived by school bus deliveries over the next fiscal year. Purchase incentives and tax breaks continue to provide significant financial benefit to fleet operators who are migrating to all-electric vehicles,” Riley said. “In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, we also delivered the first commercial vehicles to school districts who are looking to move, not just school buses, but also their supporting fleet to cleaner energy. We believe that this trend will continue as local school districts experience the financial benefit of all-electric vehicle ownership costs.”
